Ever since hmm…about third grade we have been told that time management is the most important skill you can posses. Yet, no one ever really explained how to manage time well. I guess it is because everyone works differently, and you can’t really stop someone from procrastinating. There could be a power outage and I would still find a way to avoid doing work.
Despite my procrastinating abilities, it has never created a problem where I didn’t hand in work on time. My issue is remembering to do all my work. I have a terrible memory. It is my hamartia, my Achilles’ heel, my inevitable downfall.
Or is it inevitable? (Hint: it’s not.) After being burned by this once (okay, more than once) I went through the four stages of “efficiency enlightenment”. Step one: Denial – I know I usually have a terrible memory, but this time I’m gonna remember to do this. It’s only one assignment, how could I possibly forget about it? Step two: Get distracted and lose all memory of everything that is important and necessary – Okay time to go home/get a snack/take this Buzzfeed quiz. Step three: Shock and anger – OH !*%#( I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO WRITE/PRINT/FINISH THAT THING!! Step four: Acceptance and enlightenment – Wow, I am so dumb. I am never letting that happen again. Wait, what’s due next class? Lemme write that down.
And there you have it, the secret to never missing an assignment again. Okay, maybe that’s a stretch, but it works for me. I freaking love planners. I write everything in them – due dates, ideas, random notes, schedules… you get the picture. Usually I try to get my hands on an FIT planner, which is much more official than the one I’m using now. It has all the actual dates with space to write assignments, little calendars, quotes from famous people and pictures of FIT student’s work, which is my favorite part. They give them out to freshmen at orientation, just one of many fantastic reasons to actually go to orientation. Usually, they have the extras at the Student Life center where I swipe them from, but this year there weren’t any! So, I had to improvise. It’s almost nicer because I have more room for random notes, which I have a lot of surprisingly.
But everyone knows the best part about writing down everything you have to do is crossing it out. Nothing feels better than making a nice big scratch across an assignment that has been taken care of. One less thing to do! I am also a big fan of circling and underlining the important/usually forgotten stuff. Do you guys have any tricks for getting work done?
–Emily–