productivity

Never Underestimate Time

We’re notoriously bad at ‘doing time’. Memory plays tricks on us. We remember several years ago like it was yesterday. Yet it’s hard to remember what dinner was four days ago. The last time you saw a good friend felt like months ago, but it was less than two weeks back according to your diary. Then, when you meet up again, it’s like you’d hardly been apart!

Yes, time is weird.

photo by TW Collins

How much time do you think is available?

Whatever the event, whatever the deadline, it’ll feel like a long way away at first. Say you’ve got a month to complete some coursework. You don’t think it’s worth starting so soon. Anyway, it shouldn’t take more than a few hours of your time.

But it’s bound to take longer than you imagine. Maybe a few extra hours tidying up and formatting, maybe a couple of extra days researching. The deadline of one month slips away without you realising and it’s hard to recover without a solid plan of action. What seemed like long into the future is now a race against time.

Don’t underestimate how long you’ve got. Life has a tendency to get overcrowded. A lack of clear goals will only make matters worse. Get timetabling, Get organised, and start early.

Time shifts. When is your time?

The 24 hours in each day are not equal in terms of your productivity. For a start, you probably sleep between 5 and 10 hours of every 24.

What about the remaining hours? Well, it’s a simple goal, but crucial…find the right time of day for you.

It might sound like common sense, but another thing we’re bad at is listening to our bodies. If you’re a night owl, your body will hold you back if you try making an early morning start on your work. So try to get the work done in the evening. While you may prefer to have fun at the times you’re most awake, you must devote some of your most alert moments on work too. Having fun doesn’t usually need as much brainpower as hard work and research. Depends on what the ‘having fun’ involves!

Got a lot of time on your hands? Is that actually a good thing?

Having too much time is just as bad as not having enough. The combination of too much time on your hands and a low willpower (which can often go together) leads to a damp squib.

Fill some of that time up. Do some volunteering in your field, join a society, make some cash with a part-time job, do something you’re interested in.

Don’t fill the time up with pointless exercises or just act busy. The secret is having a select number of focused goals and interests. They don’t have to be full-on passions, so feel free to experiment! You’ll know when the right thing hits you.

With less free time on your hands and a greater focus, you’ll feel more energised than if you were just bumming around half the time. The renewed energy should have a knock-on effect with everything else you do. What have you got to lose?

Why can’t time be simple?

While we’re on Earth, we live through every second of every day of every week of every year. We use time everywhere. We look at the time. We wait for the right time. We set timers and alarms and reminders. Yet time controls us. It just has to be a strange relationship.

Every second counts. That’s why the better we work with time, the more we get out of it. Plan your time in advance, know when the time is right, and use the time wisely.

When you do this, you respect time. And time may well nod in your direction and respect you back.

Information overload, or filter failure?

There is no such thing as information overload. If you’re overwhelmed by what you’ve got to read/consume, you have probably chosen to feel that pain.

The choice may not be intentional, but I doubt someone else is forcing you to consume too much information. Even the compulsory reads on your reading lists shouldn’t be too much, even if it seems that way at the time.

[Note: Speed reading could help. A quick search on Google brings loads of results. At time of writing, the most recent speed reading piece I’ve seen is from Tim Ferriss. To try getting a speed boost, give it a go.]

Imagine you see the Top 10 bestselling non-fiction books in a store. Have you read all of them? It’s unlikely. Do you intend to? I doubt it.

What you’ve done here is created a filter. You have chosen to miss out on some reading material. Even if you had the money, the chances of someone buying all the books and reading each of them are slim. I’m sure you’d probably take something useful away from many books you’ve not read, but you can’t read every last thing that’s ever been written. Even a fraction of one percent would be difficult to get through. There’s just too much out there!

photo by B Tal

Your life is full of choices. The data you wish to consume depends on how you choose to consume. Some people, even uni students, claim never to read books unless they are practically forced to for an essay or exam. Others can’t stop reading certain types of novels. Others spend all day reading Facebook updates and blog posts. It’s all a choice.

‘Information Overload’ occurs when you choose to consume too much. It also happens when there’s such a backlog of reading that it’s too difficult to catch up with. You then have to make another choice…do you give up something else in order to catch up, or do you discard some of the older material in order to lighten the load?

You’re likely to lose out if you take on too much. When the ‘Information Overload’ feels like it’s about to strike, the simple choice is to get rid of a portion of what’s bringing you down. Failing that, skim for the main points only and move on as quickly as possible.

It’s difficult to stop engaging with information that you’re used to reading. It’s difficult to stop reading/watching the news if you’re used to that. It’s difficult to stop consuming anything you have grown accustomed to. That is why filtering is not easy, but always possible. And not only is it a relief, it’s also surprising how little it matters once you’ve stopped.

One of my personal mottos is “Know when to stop”. I find it important to read a lot. It feels right in my personal circumstances and I use it to my advantage. Once I start to find things tough, I step back and discard what I can do without. As I say, not always easy, but definitely possible. The more I have practised this, the easier it has become to cut back and move on.

Sure, some of my choices may end up being mistakes. Nobody’s perfect. But it’s unusual to find a situation where you can’t rectify those mistakes and get back to the position you want to be.

Steve Pavlina has written about networking with busy people. It’s worth reading what he has to say in relation to information overload, because he could have crashed and burned with the amount of communication he was getting. As his site grew, so did the number of people contacting him. Rather than continue responding to every single person, Steve decided to filter differently in order to cope. He says, “I don’t have the capacity to accept deeper connections with everyone who wants to build a bridge with me, so I have to be selective”.

I’m sure he didn’t want to stop talking to each and every person, but there comes a time when it’s not possible to keep going. When no choice is made to change the filter, that’s when the choice is made for you and ‘information overload’ occurs.

While some people insist on swimming further out to sea until they’re helplessly swept away, I’ll make do with paddling. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll take a short swim in slightly deeper waters, but I want to be sure I can get back to safety pretty quickly.

I don’t see that as weak. I simply want to be able to make the choice myself. It’s important to be in control of those filters and use them wisely.

How easy do you find filtering your information in-tray? If you have any tips, I’d love to hear from you.

The Mental Necessities of Timetabling

The effectiveness of your timetable depends entirely on how you see the world and what you want to achieve.

It may not seem important, but the way you plan your future can impact just as heavily on your success as the planned actions themselves.

For instance, if you’re the kind of person who enjoys seeing an empty timetable, it’s no good filling it up with small tasks throughout the day.

photo by nosheep

Before you start making plans for anything, ask yourself how you will best make use of those plans. Not all to-do lists are the same!

Even with summer approaching, your time is best used with some form of timetable, so you are best prepared for the time to come. You may have a summer job, a reading list for next academic year, holidays planned, thoughts on going out with mates, personal goals, fitness regimes, and a lot more in sight. A good timetable will bring all your thoughts together and let them take shape without overwhelming you. A bad timetable just makes you feel like there isn’t enough time for everything.

So what are the possibilities? Here are some ideas:

1. Every last action written down and dealt with – If you need to take stock of everything, no matter how big or small, you should first outline your longer-term goals and intentions. Then all you need is persistence, a good diary and a solid technique for getting your extensive daily to-do list sorted quickly at the start of each day. Don’t try to plan much further ahead than this, as it will become too difficult to comprehend each and every issue you want to handle each day.

2. Bare timetable, only listing lectures, seminars, meetings, job hours, and any unavoidable deadlines – This method is suitable for those who have the focus and determination to work without procrastinating, but who do so by seeing large sections of free time available. Clearly, this doesn’t work if you treat it as free time. Neither does it work if you don’t give yourself a break… If you’re serious about your work but don’t like to restrict yourself with plans, a bare timetable can pay off.

3. A timetable, plus a to-do list – You might not want to schedule your to-do actions for the day. Perhaps you sort those tasks much better when you find small pockets of time. For a bit of flexibility throughout a generally ordered day, it does no harm to consult two forms of forward planning. Just make sure the to-do list doesn’t involve items that must be timetabled, otherwise you’ll duplicate yourself unnecessarily.

4. Simple to-do list only – While we all need some sort of timekeeping, if you’re happy to remember the one or two appointments you need to keep in the day, you may prefer to keep the times in your head. Instead, all you may want to write down is a basic list of jobs you need to do. Although basic, you should still be more specific than to list “Write essay” and “Visit library to research topic X”. You could list “Write 200 words for Introduction” or “Use reading list to find relevant books and scour for quotes based on this week’s essay”.

5. Boxed 24-hour timetable, like David Seah has designed – Even if it doesn’t work for you, you’ve got to admit it’s kind of awesome.

There are many ways of scheduling your day/week/month/year/life, but only you can find what works for you. It’s important you do find a working method though, because it makes a big difference to who you are.

Please feel free to suggest any other timetabling and scheduling methods that work for you in the comments.

photo by spekulator

Believe in yourself

Facebook doesn’t equal worse grades. It doesn’t equal better grades either, for that matter. Facebook is a tool that you can make use of in any way you please.

It’s the way you choose to interact with a tool that helps shape your future.

You’ll have noticed that I have spent some time away from TheUniversityBlog and my Twitter account (and other online services). I could have worried about the decision and seen it in negative terms after having read about the dangers of getting off the Web2.0 rollercoaster. I could have panicked about losing subscribers and followers, creating mountains out of molehills.

But I listened to myself, took responsibility for my actions, and made a decision that was best for me (selfish, but hopefully for the best). While I missed working on the blog and keeping in touch with everyone online, I knew that I would be coming back both happy to communicate with you on all aspects HE and ready to re-engage with the tools that make it happen. Thanks for sticking with me!

I wanted to write today simply to mention that you needn’t worry what others suggest when it comes to your own life. You may have heard in the news about a study looking at Facebook usage and exam grades. A lot of reports mentioned a clear link between heavy Facebook use and lower grades. However, the academic study didn’t set it out that way. Turns out that Facebook usage doesn’t suddenly screw your life up and result in lower grades. Unless, of course, you choose that destination…

(more…)