Planning and Time Management
After wanting to conquer time you must then know how to do so, and the first things to learn are planning and time management. Time management may involve a lot of trial and error, but nonetheless, starting out with a system that works will make those trials and errors much more productive.
On PathAspire we've written a list of
“big goals” in academics, jobs, etc (link) and we also stress that it’s important to take time to develop your own skills. This is by no means secondary to the predetermined "big goals". High school is a time to create your goals as much as to achieve them. Perhaps you want to learn to play the drums or cello, to write or draw, to become a competitive synchronized swimmer or skilled debater, to learn about the world and universe by reading astrophysics, politics or history. There must be times when you see someone create something or do something, and wish you had that skill, wish you could create like they did.
Make a list of these things, all of them. Make a list of every goal you can think of, big and small. There will be three main categories of goals, so divide them accordingly.
The first will be skills- and knowledge-based; we will call this
Category 1. Some examples from my own list are:
• Learning the basics of several languages and instruments
• Reading on a variety of topics from sustainable energy to classical history
• Learning to draw, cook, and use Photoshop.
The second category (
Category 2) consists of goals that are continuous commitments—exercise, reading the news, extracurriculars, a job, hanging out with friends, or schoolwork, for example.
The third category (
Category 3) includes goals that are finite but still formidable. This might include studying for the PSAT, writing a book, making a video, painting your room, finding an internship, self-studying for an AP test, or applying to colleges. These things take time and commitment, but they produce a finished product and then the commitment is over. Aside from these categories, really the only other goals you could have are small necessary tasks that are short-term obligations that nonetheless are often very difficult to keep track of and remember. These are the kinds of things you might write on your hand or in your agenda-—buy milk from the store, order this gift for a friend, burn a CD, write an email. We will call these the Tasks category, and deal with them later, as they are not long-term goals.
To begin your planning, write all of these down, organized by Category. Take your time as you list your goals; this part is probably the most important, and it’s difficult to think of everything at once. Make your lists, and everything that has to do with planning, in such a way that it is easy to rearrange or add or remove things, because you will always be making changes.
Now you should have a comprehensive list of every significant goal, continuous and finite, that you have at the time you make the list. So it’s time to start arranging them. It’s up to you exactly how you do it, but I like to do things in terms of what we will call “Eras”—for example, first semester of senior year is its own Era because all the activities I do and goals I have are commonly themed, and the summer before senior year would also be its own Era, and so on. Now, make a separate Word document/notebook page/journal entry/etc. for this era. On this page, list every goal that you will devote time to in this Era. If you have a ridiculously long list of goals, don’t worry, that’s a good thing. But, unfortunately, time exists, so you won’t be able to do all of it at once. The sad truth is that you probably can’t get through second semester of junior year with SATs and APs and still learn Arabic, bagpipes, and advanced quantum mechanics while building a treehouse and having time to hang out with your friends on the weekend. So instead, if there’s too much, prioritize. On the Era page, you’ll have to include all of your continuous goals (job/schoolwork/exercise/friends/etc.) because you will obviously have to spend time on them during the period of time you’re planning out.
The prioritization comes when you decide which things from Category 1 and Category 3. Go to Category 3 first, and pick out the things on the list that you want to accomplish during this Era. Things topical to whatever the Era might be, such as SAT and APs in second semester of junior year, will obviously have to be included. Then, include anything else you deem necessary or highly desirable. If you really want to build a treehouse soon or learn the bagpipes, or if you’re going to the Middle East over the summer and want to learn Arabic beforehand, make sure to include those things. Then do the same with Category 1, keeping in mind that you need to economize, because if you have too many commitments it will become impossible to fulfill them. Then, finally, after everything that is either necessary or strongly desirable is included on your list of goals for that era, go on to include a few of the other projects or knowledge and skills from your lists that you would like to do if you have extra time, but realize that you may not be able to get to these. That relies on how many other obligations you have, and how efficiently you can fulfill them. The important thing is that at this point you are not missing anything necessary—you have, essentially, a list of everything you could possibly need to do in this Era as far as you currently know. Any additions or changes may be made as they come up.
Planning becomes somewhat less difficult at this point. You have your original list of overall goals that you would like to achieve at some point in time, and another more specific list that includes all of your goals for the near future, i.e. the current Era. Now all that is left to do is to continue to plan more specifically—the idea is that you started out with an overwhelming jumble of nebulous aspirations and now you have converted those to a more manageable form with the Era objectives list, and you will continue breaking it down until eventually you are able to follow an adaptable daily schedule that coincides with your overall goals. So the next step, after having created the list of Era goals, is to set up a calendar. Using Microsoft Outlook might be a good idea because it is convenient and has a reminder feature, but any calendar (on your phone, Google calendar, anything) should be fine. On this calendar, you want to write down any important dates or deadlines that you know of in the coming/current Era. For example, if there is an SAT Subject Test on October 4th, or if you need to have something done by a certain week, make sure to note that. Remember, this is simply breaking it down further, converting vague ambitions to an hourly schedule. (While setting up the calendar, it would also be useful to include anything else, like parties/events/trips you’re taking/friends’ birthdays, just to stay organized.) Most of your deadlines will probably be Category 3 Era goals, but some Category 1 (skills/knowledge) Era goals might be included also if you want to have learned a certain skill or subject by a given date. At this point, you will essentially have some goals with deadlines, and others without deadlines; it can be assumed that the goals without deadlines are either constant or flexible commitments.
Now it is finally time to start drafting your schedule for the first week of the Era. Open up your calendar, open up your list of Era objectives, and also open up your Tasks category list (remember, these are necessary short-term tasks like cleaning your room or burning a CD for a friend or getting a form signed). Just like you broke down your overall list into your Era list, now you’re going to break down your Era list into the weekly list. Obviously it will still include your continuous goals—say, you’ll want to exercise, hang out with some friends, keep up with your extracurriculars, and do your homework. Those things don’t go away—add them to your weekly list. Then, look at the Tasks list. What do you need to get done this week? If you need to pick up the dry cleaning or mail your grandpa a letter or return a DVD by the end of the week, add those to the weekly list so you remember to do them. Then, take a look at your Era list and your calendar. Which of the goals on your Era list need to be done soon? Is the PSAT coming up soon? Did you want to learn how to use Photoshop before a certain day? Now you see why you set up a calendar—so that you can prioritize your Category 1 and 3 goals in your weekly lists based on their immediacy. Remember that if all this is during the school year, school will take up a lot of your time, and schoolwork/exercise/job/extracurriculars/etc. will take up even more, so you’ll only have maybe 2-4 hours per day for other things, so choose carefully. Continue adding items to your weekly list until everything that needs to be done soon is on the list, and if you estimate that you might still have some time left over, which hopefully you will a little bit, you can also add some more things from the Era list to work on (maybe reading a book that you’d like to read but isn’t necessary). You will get better at prioritizing and estimating how much can be done in a week as you accustom yourself to this kind of planning.
At this point, you have your week’s goals listed, and all that’s left to do is convert that to a daily schedule, and you’ll be able to follow it. Let’s say you have school and a club two days a week after school, and you want to work out two days a week. Your agenda is probably the best place to write all these specific plans down, now that you have your weekly/Era lists and calendar as an overall guide. So, your week might end up something like this. Every day, a club after school. Monday and Wednesday, go to the gym. Tuesday and Thursday, go to club meetings. Friday and Saturday evening, hang out with friends. Saturday and Sunday morning, work. Every day, do homework (write this down each day as you get it, of course). There are your Category 2 (continuous) goals put into a usable schedule. Next, take a look at your Tasks list. If you need to return a movie to Blockbuster within 2 days, write that down. If you need to get groceries by the end of the week, maybe schedule it for Saturday. So on, until all of your necessities are met—your schoolwork is scheduled in, your job, your workout schedule, your chores, your extracurriculars, and even your friends, are all scheduled, and you should have a fairly good idea of how long each will take, which day each will be, and how much time you will have left over.
Now realize this: that is usually as far as people get. A lot of people don’t have a plan like that, so instead they stumble about all the things they’re obligated to do, forgetting some and delaying others, and too absorbed in the present to be conscious of their overall goals and how those should be translating into their everyday life, and the result is that they manage to passably carry out all of their necessary goals, and that is all. This is where you will be different. After your weekly necessities are fully mapped out, after you complete them and do other daily things like showering and eating, you should still hopefully have at least two or three hours a day to be doing other things. This is where your Category 1 and Category 3 goals come in. If the PSAT is coming up, and you have so much going on that you only have two hours a day to devote to anything outside of your normal activities, spend those two hours on the PSAT. But hopefully you are not quite that pressed for time, and you will have maybe four hours a day—especially after reading about concentration and efficiency and getting the most out of sleep, this may not actually be too difficult. So one or two of these hours might be spent on important things like big standardized tests or preparing for debate tournaments or other things like that. That still leaves two full hours a day, after the studying and exercise and clubs and all those other things, to finally have some time for yourself and your own personal goals. Without planning everything so precisely, in such an integrated way, with every hour being spent with a purpose as part of a greater plan, this time probably wouldn’t be there. But now, you have at least one or two hours, every day, to write your book, or make your movie, or learn your languages. You have made time for those Category 1 and Category 3 goals that might otherwise have been lost. Continue this process each week, first referring to the calendar and the Era list and making additions and changes to both as needed, then making your weekly list of objectives, then prioritizing them as you map out each day of the week, and then hopefully being able to fit in some of the things you really want to explore. As the Era draws to a close, revisit your overall goals, consider what you’ve accomplished and learned, and think of any new ideas you’ve had. Use all of this to repeat the process, and draw up the plans for the next Era. The process is continuous. Adapt it to your own style, incorporate efficiency, find new ways of manipulating the clock, and soon you will have done the impossible. You will have conquered Time.
You have all these things you really want to do, you know in what order and when to do them, but now you are faced with the task of actually following your plans. Continue to the next page to learn how to work with concentration and efficiency and get the most out of every hour.
