If I change my schedule I could be a happier student. I struggle with time management to an extreme. Being so sloppy with my time causes me anxiety and negativity in my personal life. If I can perhaps change my life and improve my scheduling skills then I can become a happier student and all around happier person. Putting my priorities in order and managing my time can improve my life.
My time management skills have always caused me extreme anxiety. Being a huge procrastinator I put everything for school to the last minute. I started working pretty young and I think that’s when my priorities started to skew. I had to juggle school, work, and friends, and it became obvious to me which was the most important. So I concentrated on work and friends because of the immediate gratification that came with these things. Sometime, I just didn’t do my school work at all because I felt I had no time. This of course peaked my anxiety, but I always found other things to blame then my lack of schedule.
My dramatic decrease in GPA and being so anxious all the time and stressed caused problems in my personal life. I was more on edge and angry all the time, I felt like everything was working against me, even though most of it was my own fault. I was getting into more fights and sleeping more too. All of these different problems caused me to feel like I was drowning. I was living my life the way most students were described too in “the drowning model” described in our reading. I was pushing everything to the last minute and it was causing other negative things to happen around me. This was all happening because of my lack of time management skills. A problem that seemed so insignificant had branched into a bunch of other problems. It went on like this until I was at my breaking point and had to basically scratch my way out, for a brief sense of relief, to merely start the cycle all over again.
Since high school I find myself falling into the same habits though. I constantly feel overwhelmed and like there’s never enough time. I feel burdened with responsibility, and I notice I still don’t know how to properly manage everything I have going on. While I have been trying to use my anxiety as a drive to get things done, I need to simply change my style. I need to sit down and try to set time aside and plan out my day. This way, instead of trying to find ways to use my anxiety to my advantage, I could perhaps be free of it.
Recently I had a job interview coming up and I had every intention of taking the job despite how much stress I already find myself under. I was doing what Dan Gilbert refers to as “miswanting”, I thought that if I got a second job I’d feel less pressure and be able to relax more. So I sat down and decided to weigh out the pros and cons of the job and try to put my priorities (school, my first job, sleep!), in order. Turns out taking the other job would not only severely cut my time for school work, but it would in the long run, cost me more to work there! I do everything at the last minute now, constantly freaking out, and that’s with one job. So in the long run, with my priorities in a better order, the job would not benefit in making me happier.
So if I could only work on my time management and priority issues, I can become a happier student and all around individual. I’ll have way less anxiety and less negativity in my personal life. Maybe I won’t yell at my boyfriend so much for things he has absolutely no control over if I’m not so stressed! I think not going for that job was a step in the right direction for my time management and priority skills. Now, I need to try to set a better schedule and follow it.
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