An essay on Time Management

What this is

Look, I am a human being… I know the traps we fall into. I could have been watching Tik Tok or Instagram reels while writing this. For reference Right now it is currently 1:00PM on a Saturday while I am writing this. I have no more homework that I have to do because I finished it all early and can do this fun stuff.

I want you to think of this as an analysis on time, from my lens.

What this is not

This is not a copy and paste, quick fix for people. This has taken years of trial and error, learning, and failures to get here. For reference, as an undergraduate I have been relatively successful and done many things. Despite this, as I look back, I can only see how much time I lost doing pointless things. This is not an essay on finding meaning in the things you do, and this is not a productivity bible. I am honestly very against squeezing every second out of the day to do things for the sake of doing a lot. We can’t do everything but we can do more things of value.

TIme

We cannot reclaim this

The one thing money cannot buy is time back. When you deliberately chase something or invest time in a task just know that it is a non refundable experience. Life is not without consequence. Just know your actions do have an opposite reaction, the time lost. You subconsciously know time is currency, just think about how we pay people. We pay a salary or wage over a period of time. You build up expertise and value over timeand get compensated for it. So if you can do more in less time, or higher quality in less time you become more valuable, just in general.

You have to live in the present

Time is precious to me if you could not tell. I have only 24 hours of it and as this is an analysis, I am reflecting on my failures. One thing that took years to fix is that you cannot dwell on the past. It is important to study the past and identify patterns for reference. Many people, though, are at the extreme, watching every step they take. Being Awake For 16 hours does not equal 16 hours of good work. You have to live in the present and focus on the tasks at hand. You will save yourself much of the needed energy, to face life at full force, if you just focus on the now.

You Have Knobs

Lets draw a parallel to life to the Linux Operating System. In Linux, it is famous that we have knobs to give you control to so much. You can choose how to schedule things, how to allocate resources, and how to configure your system essentially. So Linux == Humans. No, of course not, we are way more simple than linux as humans haha(not really true I know many of you will not get the reference because you are not Computer Science nerds, so I just thought I would clarify that humans are the most complex beings because of …. Nvm remind yourself this is a Time essay.

Different Take Different Energy

The thing that is cooking peoples brain is Tiktok and Reels. I have fallen victim to this. I have wasted 5 hours a day on social media, seeing an explosion of content. Much of it is hilarious. But much of it pulls all your brain power for the day. Whether you are on it or not you will be thinking of what you saw. And when you just saw 1000 reels, the math is not in your favor. But you did nothing right, no learning, no working, nothing yet it kills your brain battery. The thing is the brain is funny , and I am not going to get into social media's effects on the brain, go look it up but in short it kills happiness and focus, that should be reserved for super important things.

Being on social media for a long time, is very expensive. Any task that requires learning something new expends high energy. Any thing that you are practicing slightly less. Doing nothing is like a battery recharge … more on this later.

I just thought I would say this, 
I do not hate social media. 
Its wonderful it connects us humans easily etc. 
But …  Too much of a good thing can be bad, and this is the case for social media

How To Use Our Time

Lets break down the problem

So it is crucial you learn how to break down problems, facing them headfirst is good. But facing them headfirst all at once, very bad.

Eisenhower Matrix

President Eisenhower is one of my favorite presidents ever, and he invented a pretty cool system.

eisenhower

So on the top left we have Do

Right here is a very important place, ideally you want as little in here as possible. When you have stuff in here, sure you might get it done, but it will be very expensive.. Think of times you have had to pull all nighters to cram for something. The work might get done but it usually takes everything from you mentally, and leaves no room for doing other things.

On the to right we have Decide

Here is where you want to be, you can efficiently break down tasks over a period of time, and not be stressed about getting them done.

On the bottom left we have Delegate

Do you have people in your life that can do this for you? Or can you possibly look into moving this into decide or delete.

On the bottom right we have Delete

Stop doing this stuff, or at least get a grip over it

Watching TikTok or Reels Checking your email every 2 seconds Checking to see if you are still on delivered Wait get of your phone maybe?

Task Scheduling

Zones AND Sinks

I like to think of my day broken up into zones,

For right now as an Undergrad in school: We Have Quiet Zone(morning), School Zone(in the day), Social/Work/anything Zone(Afternoon to night)

Now here is why I am saying this is not a how to guide. Your schedule can look completely different and mine has its fluid. But it is useful, because it relates to how I schedule my work.

In the quiet zone I have the least distractions, no ones awake or has energy (This is good because I have the highest energy in the morning, look up perfect morning routines, its changed my life ). Here I can do the most stuff and is often why by 11:00AM I have most things out of the way, even though there was some heavy computing going on, I have less stress thus it was less expensive. Deadlines are usually midnight so keep that in mind. During other zones I will not be as effective. I receive non deep work zones for less expensive tasks.

Now sinks are a tremendous issue. Where did the time go in a day, well look into your sinks. Time is the most valuable commodity so try to maximize it. I will give you an example of a sink I had earlier this year. I usually wake up at 7:00 AM and have class at 10:00 AM, before this class I went to the gym. By the time I left class, showered, ate, it was time for my next class, so I could not do any work there. I went to my next block of classes which I had from 12:00 to 2, went home, recharged a bit, and had work at 5pm.

Now where are my tasks going to fall into here, there's very thin time slots for deep hard work, the only big time slot I see is 5pm - 10pm, Now where I tutor if people don’t need help I can work, but I am making a big bet also assuming by that time of the day I can even give everything to a task. So in essence I was not playing to my personal strengths. Plus these little pockets of time leave it open to explore some of that Delete stuff like getting on my phone

Instead what I now do is wake up at 5:00 and do work from 5:30AM to 10:00 AM. Then from 11:00 - 12:00pm do some less intensive tasks. Go to class until 2:00pm. And boom now I can go to the gym, get back around 3:15 - 3:3:30,. I eat, shower, etc until 4:15 ish, and then I actually do nothing, to clear my brain, read some articles or watch something that is of my interest. By 5pm I already have everything done, so anything here is a bonus, and because I have no stress, I can operate with more of my resources and energy. Despite being awake for more hours I have more energy, because I have learned to use my time.

Analyze What's Expensive

I will just tell you an example here. For me computer networks are interesting but extremely boring. I dread this and know that working on learning this material requires me to be 100% there. So usually I do this first on my to do list, when I have to. Make time and really work on the matrix to write down what’s important. Your family for example should always have a time block where you are fully there for them. Have your matrix peer reviewed.

Think of this: look at shipping costs next time you order something last minute, standard vs overnight shipping….

Now just sit there and think, 
yep uh huh life, is really all the same in different flavors isn’t it

In practice

Write it down

If you are team tech or analog, I do not care, but write what you need to do down. This will at least get you thinking and hold you accountable for what you need to do. It works!! our brains can only remember so much.

Write Up a List

So you have your list of tasks scheduled or even a mix of things not scheduled now lets put them into a plan. Write up a numbered list of most important to least important things and start ticking them off. I suggest this is done first thing in the morning or last thing at night.

Side Note: Break up your big tasks over several days, and do them early. This can prevent your brain from blowing up because remember big tasks do soon are EXPENSIVE.

You need silence

WE ARE (haha funny because I went to PSU), not robots.

You can only do so much, and even GPUs blow up when you throw your entire course work due tonight in ChatGPT. Practice doing things with no music, no phone, just think. You will come up with cool ideas, see how things connect, and even solve hard problems easier. It is fuel for your machine. Oh yeah … and it actually makes you happier than watching 5 of the funniest videos you have ever seen every 5 minutes of your 5 hour reels binge everyday.

Final Remarks

You need to be healthy

You need to get your mind right for your machine to work at its best. We talked about a few things which reduce stress and try to practice them. You need to eat, sleep, and exercise well. I will not go into detail how to do each but really what I will advise is do the simple things that's how you stay on track. When things get hard you fall to the subconscious side of your brain if the simple aspects of your life are stong, bring on life baby.

This Isn’t PERFECt do some Experimenting

Now this is my analysis and my experience, but you have to see what and what does not work for you. You have to start trying things, that is how you become better at life.

A large part of this work was meant to show you the importance behind planning at different angles, truly “Failing to plan, is planning to fail”.

“If you can dream it, you can do it” -- Walt Disney