Saturday, October 20, 2012

Time Management






Since we had the meeting with Ms. Terrell I have really put thought on my time management. Usually when I have homework in school I have everything planned out and what time I am going to do it. When I am at home I just get so excited and want to do anything that isn’t homework. I always think “oh I’ll do it after eating, or after I watch just this one show.” I always do something fun before homework and end up having to start my homework at 8 or 9 at night sometimes finishing and other times waking up super early to finish it. 



When Ms. Terrell came and spoke about how time management is super important and that later on in 11th and 12th grade time is going to be rare, I started thinking that I should start getting ready. Imagine I barely finish my homework now when its “easy” so imagine in 11th and 12th grade. That’s why I am starting to get my act together.

I made 4 goals that may not be so big but that will help me anyways.  The first one is to keep a weekly planner. When Ms. Terrell made us make a planner of all our homework and tests that week it seemed like a good idea so I went ahead and tried making one at home. So the day I came back from school hearing all those things about time management I went straight to my room without stopping to eat or do any stupid little thing (that was a big accomplishment for me) and started on my weekly planner. Ever since that one day a weekly planner has been common to be in my position. That one planner that I have always thought was useless and a waste of time has actually helped me so much. My grades have increased so much that my parents were even shocked at it. It was all thanks to that one little planner in which one day I thought would never help.

The second goal I made was to not procrastinate. This one is a lot tougher than the planner. I always set in my mind that I am not going to wait to start a project on the day before turning it in. Whenever I think about starting that one project I always get distracted. Homework is just so boring that I find a way to escape it and then I look at the time and say “oh well it’s too late to start now, so tomorrow I do it”.  Well my solution was that when I have a project that is due next month I start it on the day I get it and finish a couple of days later. To not get distracted I put aside a time to play and a time to do work. That has actually been working and the impressive thing is that I did my work when I was supposed to.


 My third goal to manage my time was to make a routine. Whenever I get home from school I eat and then go straight to work. That may seem like a silly goal but a routine helps me get organized. Having a routine allows me to always to kind- of do the same thing at the same time. It puts the important things I have to do first in first place and the non-important (fun) things after I finish all of my work. It doesn’t have to be boring and have the same thing at the same time every single day but it allows me to kind- of know when to do my work.







Watching this video has added another goal to my list of how to manage my time. Whenever I get home I make a list of everything that I have to do and circle the most important or biggest one to do and finish. This goal has made me realize that if I try to do the little and not so important assignments first, then I have to do the more challenging ones I have with no energy or want to actually do it. I think this is one of the most important goal because it has allowed me to quickly and efficiently get rid of the tough assignments without having to use up all of my energy.   


I haven’t had any problems managing my time so far. It has been a weird transition from going to starting my homework in the middle of the night to actually having to do it during the day. Other than that nothing has gone bad. My goals have remained practically the same, but now since I actually have more time due to those goals I have more time to do whatever I want. Even on this project I managed to be able to finish it before the day before it was due. That has been a huge accomplishment for me and I know that from now on all of my projects will be like this one. 


 Having goals and being able to manage my time really has helped me and my grades. Seriously before I had that class about time management I didn’t really care about when to start my work or when to finish it. I didn’t think that in the future my free time would be scarce if I didn’t manage it and I am so glad that I actually started now before it was too late.