I Have far too much college work?

Question

I have a lot of College work on my hands at the minuite and need help on how to manage the heaping amounts that are buliding up and have deadlines to get how can i keep on top of it all, but still have a social life and go and have fun with my freinds??

Comments

This is a great question that reveals a very common problem. People feel they cannot do more, because they do not even have time to do the things that they want to do now.

I have called it the time trap in my answer, but I realize that such a widespread problem deserves a bigger profile.

I am not certain yet, which fears, and which freedoms, I should organize this time trap under. My initial reaction is that the trap is caused by uncertainty about the future. I.e. we are uncertain what we really want to achieve, therefore we constantly give time to the wrong tasks, and complain when we cannot do the things we ought to do.

Maybe we should not  be doing those things just because we think we ought to do them. Or maybe they are the right things, but we are doing them in the wrong way.

Elsewhere, we have discussed short-term and long-term financial goals. These are vital to planning financial freedom. But life freedom is even more important, so planning short-term and long-term use of time is more important.

I have given an answer below for short term time planning. For this to make sense, I believe you need to precede it with a life plan. How do you want to spend your time, 10 - 20 years from now? The plan for that will determine how you should split your non-essential time between current leisure, current earnings, current study time. The study time is your investment for your life plan.

Answer 1

Most people who work for a living complain about work-life balance, or rather, they complain about an imbalance. It almost always means that they are so busy working that they have no time to enjoy leisure activities.

Your situation is similar. Study and social life can be hard to balance. Let's call it the time trap. It is the helpless feeling you get when you can never seem to find the time to do important things.

There is no magic formula to settle this, but you can build your own.

It starts with the recognition that there are 24 hours in a day. That is fixed, and nothing you or anyone else can do can change that. You can flex certain things, such as staying in bed longer after a late night, but this is just short term juggling.

You must never confuse short term juggling with long term planning, and you should never confuse fixed deadlines with flexible targets.

The most important time in your life, today and forever, is maintenance time. This is time for eating, sleeping, dressing, exercising, etc. It is the time for doing all those things, and the time for organizing them. You cannot do without it, so set that time. Add one hour for "me time" - the time when you do nothing except enjoy being yourself.

This is the essential step that most people forget. They think that freedom means doing things when you want to do them, but it does not. You are only free personally, when all those essential tasks are scheduled. Paradoxically, the more you fix them, the freer you become.

Why? Because if the essentials are taken care of, you have time available for pleasure and enjoyment, knowing that you will not be trapped by lack of essentials. If you are never tired, never hungry, never unsure about what you want to achieve, then you will waste very little of your 24 hours.

The numbers are now up to you. Out of the 24 hours, let's assume you have allocated 11 hours for essentials. You can change these from day to day, but you will do better, if you try to fix them. This applies especially when you first try to free yourself from the time trap. Fix your daily meal times and sleep times. Fix your "me hour" - best as your first hour, your last hour, or split it half an hour before and after sleep.

By the way, you may think that a me-hour can be used to gain extra time for something else. No it cannot - use sleep for that if you must, as most of us can easily survive with an hour less sleep. In me-time, never do anything more than thinking. It can be prayer, meditation, day-dreaming, listening to music, or whatever else works for you. Reading for pleasure is borderline - reading for work is forbidden.

Now you can slot in the other activities you need to do. Studying hours are usually quite fixed, so plan them, making sure that private study is scheduled to be compatible with college hours, but also make sure that revision periods and exams are taken into account.

Then you have to stick to it. If you have not done your study hours when social time comes knocking, you must be firm, and tell friends you will meet them in an hour.

If you still have a problem with college work after this, then you need to discuss it with tutors or your pastoral support team. They will help you organize college work around a daily schedule.

If all else fails, come back with a more meaningful question. If you have followed this advice, your question should be something like:
"I have allocated 8 hours every week day, and 8 hours spread over the weekend, but I cannot [insert what you need to do that you cannot do in the time available]"
Or
"I have allocated 8 hours every week day, and 8 hours spread over the weekend, but I cannot stick to my schedule because [insert what is distracting you]"
Be detailed. Be honest. Get free to do what you want, when you want it.

Comments

That is a great answer and got straight to the point of what I was asking and I will take on board everything that you have said and hopefully I will be a lot less stressed. It hopefully wont take away from either my college or social life.