With the second semester kicking in strong, I have experienced an increase in the workload both at school and outside of school. One of my goals this year has been to learn how to manage time and work efficiently. I have tried many new things to achieve my goal, but the fact of the matter is that until I don’t sit down and analyze what I’ve been doing, what works and what doesn’t, I am not going to learn anything new. This is one thing I have learned from the interim experience at Linworth Alternative High School. Every year the students get a week off from school to do anything that interests them. The only requirement is to complete the 40 hours required and write journal entries to reflect on what was done and what you learned.

My mother always tells me that Mohandas Gandhi used to say that people think most clearly in the early hours of morning, and that following a routine is necessary to living a successful life. I have taken up my mom’s advice and followed Gandhi’s words this year. I am fortunate enough that my dad drops me off to school every morning, so I don’t have to wait for the bus. In previous years, I have reached school only a few minutes prior to class, taking advantage of every extra minute of sleep I have in the morning. This year, however, I have made it a point to get up every morning at 6 am, and be at school by 7:10 am, whether I needed to be there or not. I am not exactly sure what the psychology is behind this, but I have been wider-awake during class this year than last year, even if I have gotten less sleep. I have also maintained a routine during the weekends and resisted the temptation of sleeping-in until late, which has helped me keep a uniform sleep cycle during the weekdays.

The first thing I hear with any time-management plan is to set goals and establish priorities. I have always heard this, and thought I was following exactly what the experts say. I was setting goals and establishing priorities… in my mind that is. Until now, I have not realized the importance of putting your goals and priorities down on paper. I have found legal pads extremely useful, since they are perfect for maintaining lists of things to do. I break each task down into little chunks and cross off each thing I accomplish, which enables me to see marked progress.

Until now, I have overlooked the importance of organizing your communications as well. It is important to set aside only a limited time for phone calls, emails and things of that nature. With two of my own businesses, it is hard to resist the temptation of constantly taking calls or answering emails to provide “good service.” I have learned to set my own business hours in which to work on business related tasks. My email responses have become shorter, more concise and to the point. I have also setup an online customer relationship management system so I can assign most of the work to other people to complete. Currently I forward most of my calls to my brother and cousin, who are in Boston and New York respectively. They take calls whenever I am not available. I am still working on creating a protocol to follow so I can outsource most of my repetitive, labor oriented “secretary work” at rates as low as $2/hr.

The only issue I am running into now is that I am putting high priority on important tasks, but there seems to be an endless list of “high priority” items on my to-do list. I never seem to get to the low priority items. For example, I would put a higher priority on homework due the next day than I would on a large project due in a week. This leads to procrastination, because the priority of that project does not go up until the last few days before it is due. I also need to continue working on getting more sleep, because generally people work more efficiently when they are well rested.

Posted in Posted by Umang Patel at 12:52 AM