Time Management

The Important Habit of Just Starting

Dr. Piers Steel's formula for motivation, found within the article

Motivation: I want to stop working jobs that are boring or that I don’t like, I have a passion for learning about diseases and ailments and I want to get paid for that passion.

Expectancy: as of the 2015-16 school year, OU has a 66.8% graduation rate. So the odds are a 50/50 chance I will graduate, and being a Senior with two years left I think that increases my odds. I am a first generation student, sort of; my grandmother had a Master’s degree in accounting, however neither of my parents received an education higher than high school. If I were to classify myself as a first generation college student, I am faced with the fact that as of 2011-2012 academic year only 11% of first generation college students graduated within 6 years of enrolling in school. While this lowers my odds, I don’t think I have much to fear. I completed two years at a community college and one year at OU; what that tells me is that I have the ability to succeed in college if I keep pushing forward for this last two year stretch. It might not be within 6 years of starting, but I think having changed my major a few times gives me an excuse to take a little longer. 

Value: the same reason for my motivation, I want to get paid for what I am passionate about. An additional value is that I can maybe increase the value of other people’s lives by working on medicine to fight infections and diseases – and bettering the quality of life is an invaluable achievement I hope to attain.

Impulsiveness: I would say I am minorly distracted if I get started on a task right away, but if I wait one to two hours to get started on my tasks, it is pretty easy to turn into three to four hours delay to whoops it’s midnight. I think the hardest thing is just getting started, but once I start it is very difficult for me to quit.

Delay: There are so many different rewards, I try to focus on the one closest at hand. If I take each assignment one at a time, and just focus on completing them as they appear I am much more inclined to start them rather than if I focus on the fact that (as of writing this) I am 383 points away from an A in this class. This strategy is actually what helped me get through boot camp, often in my head I would be repeating – 

Okay, I just have to get through breakfast.

Now lunch, I just have to get through to lunch.

Dinner is next, and even better, I get to sleep after that! 8 hour break :D

Keeping a bulls-eye focus on time like that really kept me from being overwhelmed at the almost 4 month long training. I use this thought strategy when I have a large list of assignments do. I write out all the assignments I need to do, but then only look at them one at a time and keep the rest covered until I have finished one. This way, I have several immediate rewards as I climb the ladder to accomplishing a large task – which is something advocated for in this and coincidentally the next article.

The Psychology of Checklists: Why Setting Small Goals Motivates Us to Accomplish Bigger Things

Checklists are by far my favorite way of accomplishing a task. My planner is my savior when it came to OU.

You can see more pictures of this planner and if you like it buy it here

Ever since I started using planners, the one above being my favorite, I rarely forget assignments and get more done on time. I often use a method where I write the assignment down to be “due” the day before it is actually due, as my own fabricated grace period.

My dad always told me growing up you are more likely to accomplish a goal if you write it down, and that’s basically what this article says! 

Something I also employ are colors – SOOOO many colors. Every class I have is in a different color, and this makes writing down all the dreaded assignments I have to do more fun. It also (for whatever reason) take some of the stress away when I look at all I have to do during a week when it is full of different colors rather than a big dump of black. 

The online checklists introduced in this article are great, and while I like the idea of starting to use one there is something about my current method that I really enjoy. However, I do admit that when I am not in school I really never touch my planner, so I either need to make it a daily habit or need to download a checklist app for my phone.

Summary

While I didn't learn a lot of new information, I got confirmation that my current methods of time management are working and good methods chosen. I have struggled for years to become successful academically, and it wasn't without many 'trial and error' (a lot of error) until I found a study and time management method that worked well for me.