Managing this week's hectic schedule

This past week has been so hectic for me, dealing with tons of homework, dance, school, and babysitting.  I have been struggling with time management a lot lately, but I guess it just takes some time to get use to all of this.  On the bright side, I have gotten a lot of things accomplished this past week like homework, spending time with my family, and relaxing. This hasn’t happened to me since I started college, but I realized that I can’t do everything at once, I just have to take it step by step and try to do one thing at a time.

This weekend I am so nervous because I have a dance competition coming up, so I have practice every day this week from 3:30 until 9:30, and then I have tons of homework on top of that, and an exam. I am already stressing out because I know I’m not going to have time to do everything and that worries me a lot.  My goal is to try to get everything done before my dance competition so I’m not stressed out, but also manage my time. So I have decided to make a planner, and write out all the things I need to do and then check them off when they get accomplished. Here are some suggestions to help with time management:

a. Place in your schedule only the events that actually match the goals

b. Plan to plan! In other words, set in your schedule each week a small amount of time to plan for the following week. Those fifteen to thirty minutes could be the most valuable activity of your week!

c. Review your schedule daily. You may want to place your daily goals at the top of your schedule for quick review.

d. Schedule time for flexibility, correspondence, and crisis management. If you can learn- to have "scheduled crises" you will be able to keep them from taking over your personal and family time.

e. Evaluate your schedule weekly. Begin keeping a journal of how time is actually spent.

f. Manage a to do list. It has been said that the palest ink is better than the best memory. Therefore, I have always recommended writing down EVERYTHING! Once your list is developed, prioritize your activities.

I was reading some articles about time management, and reading them has helped me a lot, because I have realized that I’m not the only one struggling with this issue.  According to some of the articles, tons of people struggle with time management. In the TimeManagement article, it has said that, “Managing your time effectively will bring about some dramatic improvements in your life, but you must be prepared to make some fundamental changes.” Because of this, try to take one step at a time. Reading articles have really helped to understand how to manage my time, and how to take it one day at a time.





"Time Management Article." Business Coaching for Results with Business Coach Wendy Hearn. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. http://www.business-personal-coaching.com/time-management-article.html.


"Time Management." Welcome to Grad Resources. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. <http://www.gradresources.org/articles/time_management.shtml>.

Time Management Tips

Tick, tick, tick, time is passing by. Once the time is gone there is no going back. There is little time for all the things that need to be done each day, week, month and year is always a challenge for me. There are so many conflicting needs for my time. Like, family, dance, friends, entertainment, and don't forget sleep. So I have decided to think of some tips for myself to help me with time management. My first tip is to schedule around the activities I do every day, No matter how crazy my schedule is, I should probably have some things that I can plan around. For example, homework, school, dance etc. I should put those in my schedule first, and do the less important things later. My second tip to help me with time management is to Keep fewer priorities that matter more, so Instead of trying to stay on top of homework, family, dance, friends, entertainment, and sleep, have four or five activities each day instead of cramming it all in in one day .It will help me be more effective, and help me fully accomplish a few things at a time rather than all in one day. My last tip is to take advantage of “quiet time” on the days I am free. On Fridays Saturdays and Sundays I try to mainly relax, do homework, and spend time with my family and friends. I enjoy the weekends because these are the days where I have a lot of free time on my hands, and I realized that I am not as stressed and worried about getting things done so quickly. These tips are really helpful for me, so I think these time management tips will be helpful for a lot of people in the future. Time Management Tips is really helpful and interesting for my time management topic.

Introduction

It was a hard decision trying to pick a topic for my blog; there were so many choices out there to talk about. But I have decided that my topic for my blog this semester is going to be on time management, and how it has taken a toll on my life. I chose this topic for my blog because throughout my 15 years of participating in extracurricular after school activities, time management has always been a major obstacle in my life. Going from changing in the car after school, to go to dance every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, then going to private art lessons every Tuesday, and on top of that, going to choir practice every Friday. It was a struggle for me doing all of these things every day after school. So after about 7 years I decided to quit everything except for dance. Time management was still a problem for me after I quit all of these activities because ,I danced every day except for Sundays, had tons of homework, and never had time to hang out with my family or friends.  Time management takes toll on everyone in life at some point, looking at other people’s blogs I can tell I am not the only one with this problem; it’s a hard situation to deal with. So my goal for this semester for my blogs is to tell people that time management really affects your life, and takes up most of your time and is really hard and stressful thing to deal with. I would also really like feedback on my blogs. The feedback could be anything, for example: how I could change this issue? Or what I can do to make this work? Because I know a lot of people have gone through this situation and have managed to narrow things down. So it would be really helpful for some feedback. Overall, I am very glad I chose time management as my topic because it has affected my life ever since I was little, and because I am very interested to learn more about it throughout this semester.