Gabrielle Crawford
Contributor
It’s that time again: time to stop vegging on the couch before you run out of hours in the day to get everything ticked off your to-do list. Listen to the pulse of your day and adapt.
As a student, one of the most significant and most immediate tests is not in the classroom, but in how you manage your time between your friends, your school, your homework, your job and your hobbies.
Without planning, allocating, goal-setting, delegating, analysing of time spent, monitoring, organizing, scheduling and prioritizing, you may just survive the school year, but you will face hardship in every other area of your life.
If you were a music student, you also have to set aside anywhere from one hour to a couple hours of music – practice and repetition – to further your skills. If you are not a musician or are not involved in equally obses- sive field, you may not understand how much time it takes to hone one’s skills.
Yes, there’s something about the words “practice” and “every day” that overwhelm us and tempt us to run out the door.
A musical time signature, which resembles a fraction with one num- ber on top of another on the staff, shows how many beats are in each measure and which note equals one beat. Wouldn’t it be great if life came with an instruction manual like that?
Let’s say I have three classes, two assignments and one song to learn (all on top of a trip to the gym). What I would do is divide the day into thirds: morning, afternoon and evening. I would then measure out that time into two-hour intervals. It sounds easy in theory, but difficult to pull off in practice.
On a side note, I’d fear the days I’d have to label using compound time or duple meter.
The speed or pace of a given piece (usually offered in Italian: presto [quickly] or andante [walking] for example) is called the tempo. I suppose we could also measure the speed of our own efforts and actions. I jog at a brisk [allegro] pace to my first class because I fear I’m going to be late, but I walk home lazily [largamente] because my work for the day is done.
Since we’re already on the topic, rhythm is a type of measured musical movement in a uniform or patterned set arranged in accordance with the time signature, as mentioned above.
Many people spend their days in a frenzy of activity, but achieve very little because they’re not concentrating their effort on the things that matter the most. Or they take multiple steps to do something that could have been accomplished efficiently in one.
To beat procrastination, recognize when you put something off, and change your rhythm. Create your own reward system and stick to it, like allowing yourself to take a walk or have some of your favourite food after accomplishing a certain amount of work.
Personally, I ask my roommate to check in on me and yell at me if I haven’t finished another page after a set period of time. Then, when you have time, reflect on why you were procrastinating in the first place.
A great exercise is to keep track of your actions for an entire week. Account for every 30 minutes and, on the weekend, add up your totals for sleep, class, studying, video games, etc.
As any introductory psychology course will tell you, awareness is key to changing your own behaviour. How many hours of sleep do
you average per night? How much time do you spend eating? Watching YouTube videos? Emailing? On Facebook? Are you happy with those numbers?
Maybe planning ahead is for you. Try plotting out half of your time but, for the week, leave holes for free time or impulsivity. Most time management schedules fail because they are based on perfectionism and unrealistic expectations, or they are created and put into practice when you are already behind on your work. Time management should not be used to catch up on your work, but should instead be employed from the start so you have time to spare and can relax doing what you really enjoy.
