“Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “it’s not a priority,” and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don’t want to. But other things are harder. Try it: “I’m not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it’s not a priority.” “I don’t go to the doctor because my health is not a priority.” If these phrases don’t sit well, that’s the point. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don’t like how we’re spending an hour, we can choose differently.”
—Fascinating Wall Street Journal Article on being busy. (via swissmiss)8 Time Management Tips
1. Admit that multitasking makes you less effective – and don’t do it if the work is important.
2. Know when you work best – and schedule studying, assignments and projects for that part of the day.
3. Do the most important tasks first. For example, if a project is worth a large proportion of your grade, then prioritise the time you spend on that (whether you like the subject or not.)
4. Check email, facebook, messages, texts etc at set times of the day. Don’t look at them at other times.
5. Know what works as a reward for you, and reward yourself with that when you complete a task. (But don’t cheat and reward yourself until the task is done!)
6. Have an organised to-do list, and work through it, item by item.
7. Don’t allow yourself to be sidetracked by friends, or unexpected distractions and opportunities.
8. Schedule in some leisure as you can’t work all the time.
“Not long ago I Skyped with a friend who was driven out of the city by high rent and now has an artist’s residency in a small town in the south of France. She described herself as happy and relaxed for the first time in years. She still gets her work done, but it doesn’t consume her entire day and brain. She says it feels like college — she has a big circle of friends who all go out to the cafe together every night. She has a boyfriend again. (She once ruefully summarized dating in New York: “Everyone’s too busy and everyone thinks they can do better.”) What she had mistakenly assumed was her personality — driven, cranky, anxious and sad — turned out to be a deformative effect of her environment. It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this, any more than any one person wants to be part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school — it’s something we collectively force one another to do.”
—The ‘Busy’ Trap - NYTimes.comTime Management Tips for Cosplay
Hello,
- Worried that you’ll never have enough time to get all your cosplays finish before a con?
- Concerned that your life already too busy with school, job, and ect, that you have no more time to make a cosplay?
- Every made a cosplay in under two weeks or less before a con?
- Do you find yourself stressed out over a cosplay?
- Wish for more time on a cosplay?
If so, read on. Here’s a time management trick I learned in college, it’s the ABC&D managing skills, which can be applied to cosplay projects. Now, it’s important to know about the three truism.
Truism #1 : Times flies!!!!
Truism #2: Everything takes longer than you think it will!
Truism #3: No matter what you are doing at this minute, in most cases, you would rather be doing something else.
Next, we have the ABC&D plan.
- A: Anticipate and plan
- B: Break tasks down
- C: Cross things off
- D: Don’t procrastinate!!!!
A, helps you plan out your project. Get a calendar and plan out time between the convention and a cosplay project. Always give yourself plenty of time, because rushing a cosplay won’t make it look that pretty.
B, breaking down a task is easier than trying to tackle a huge armor project at once. It’s easy to tackle small projects day by day. For example, I set up my schedule like gather materials, research, pattern, sew,check, and done. You don’t want to get caught procrastinating cause certain things can be overwhelming. Always keep in mind : everything takes longer than you think it will!
C, created a ‘to-do’ list. This list will serve multiple purpose, by keeping you updated with your process or informs you about missing materials. Plus, it’s a mini motivator to help you complete your project. Each time you cross off something on that list, you’ll feel that sense of accomplishment. However, try to put your ‘to-do’ list somewhere important, so you remember about your cosplay. Trust me, I can forget things easily. So, I make copies so there’s one in my wallet, car, and posted on my mirror.
D, don’t procrastinate!!!! Procrastination is a major problem!! Always put off until later attitude is the worst! Cosplay, takes time and a lot of effort when creating or building these amazing clothes, props, and armor. Like the old saying, “Amount of time and effort you put into something, the better that something will be.” You want that cosplay to look amazing, so you can go find a picture somewhere. AVOID PROCRASTINATE! Don’t let procrastination be a way of life for you! Manage your time right from the start!
Finding Time to Write When You Have No Time
Nearly all of us are juggling writing with something else; be it family or work commiments, school studies, a busy social life, other hobbies, or whatever. Writing time can be fleeting and difficult to find, so it is precious and you need to make the most of it.
Make sure you always have something to write on. Whether it be a laptop, mobile phone, a notebook, a napkin, the back of your hand. (Or something to record your voice on)
If you’re disciplined and focussed, you’ll be surprised how much writing you can get done in just 5 or 10 minutes. Here’s some places you can steal some time:
- Waiting to leave the house for work/school/other appointment
- Waiting for a friend who’s running late
- Waiting for and while on public transport
- In the bath or on the toilet
- In the doctor’s waiting room
- Queueing in the supermarket
- Waiting for your food to arrive in a restaurant
- During advert breaks on the TV
- When you can’t sleep
- Waiting for something to download from the internet
When have you managed to steal a few minutes to write?
The NotQuiteDoctor's Time Management Advice
Can you tell us about your scheduling/time management? Thank you! and Happy New Year!
Sure. I don’t really know how to answer this because I am not time management wizard, but I have found a few things that help.
First off, this program called Self Control is a godsend. It blocks websites you find distracting, like tumblr for example. I use it regularly to make sure I don’t let myself wander. We all know how that is…. “let me just see if so-and-so replied to my facebook message…” then an hour later after you are caught up on the newsfeed drama you have gotten nowhere on studying. This program helps with that.
Next, set a timer. For awhile I would set a timer on my phone and every time I got up for a snack, went to the bathroom, answered the phone, etc. I would stop the timer and then restart it when I went back to studying. That is an amazingly insightful experience. It will help you realize how much of your study time isn’t being used for study time.
As a follow up to the previous recommendation, remove the distractions I now keep my phone on silent or in the other room. I set goals for my snack breaks (i.e. study for the next hour then 15 minute break). I also set goals for larger breaks. Usually there is some show I am into (last block it was Breaking Bad) and so I will make a deal with myself. Study hard for three hours or until a set time and then allow yourself a longer break to watch your show, or read on a book, or knit or what ever it is you may love.
When you consistently meet that goal, increase it (if you need to, this advice is really for med students who have to increase their ability to sit and study for long periods of time as they come closer to studying for Step 1). If 3 hours is easy, try 4. This works really well for me since my tests are every 8 weeks. That means the closer I get to the test the more I have to study.
I also recommend taking days off. The biggest goal of time management is getting your work accomplished with time to spare. That spare time should be used to enjoy life. If you live inside of books 7 days a week it will be miserable… trust me on this. Try to find ways to take time off. Maybe that is only half a Saturday or Wednesday nights. Just make sure to get away from the studying and have you time.
Best of luck and happy new year,
TNQD
Managing Stress
First, it is important to recognize stress
Stress symptoms include mental, social, and physical manifestations. These include exhaustion, loss of/increased appetite, headaches, crying, sleeplessness, and oversleeping. Escape through alcohol, drugs, or other compulsive behaviour are often indications. Feelings of alarm, frustration, or apathy may accompany stress.
Stress Management is the ability to maintain control when situations, people, and events make excessive demands. What can you do to manage your stress? What are some strategies?
- Look around: See if there really is something you can change or control in the situation
- Set realistic goals for yourself: Reduce the number of events going on in your life and you may reduce the circuit overload
- Exercise in stress reduction through project management/prioritizing
- Remove yourself from the stressful situation: Give yourself a break if only for a few moments daily
- Don’t overwhelm yourself: By fretting about your entire workload. Handle each task as it comes, or selectively deal with matters in some priority. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Try to prioritize a few truly important things and let the rest slide
- Learn how to best relax yourself: Meditation and breathing exercises have been proven to be very effective in controlling stress. Practice clearing your mind of disturbing thoughts.
- Selectively change the way you react but not too much at one time. Focus on one troublesome thing and manage your reactions to it/him/her
- Change the way you see your situation; seek alternative viewpoints: Stress is a reaction to events and problems, and you can lock yourself in to one way of viewing your situation. Seek an outside perspective of the situation, compare it with yours. And perhaps lessen your reaction to these conditions.
- Avoid extreme reactions: Why hate when a little dislike will do? Why generate anxiety when you can be nervous? Why rage when anger will do the job? Why be depressed when you can just be sad?
- Do something for others to help get your mind off your self
- Get enough sleep: Lack of rest just aggravates stress
- Work off stress with physical activity, whether it’s jogging, tennis, gardening
- Avoid self-medication or escapism: Alcohol and drugs can mask stress. They don’t help deal with the problems
Begin to manage the effects of stress
This is a long range strategy of adapting to your situation, and the effects of stress in your life. Try to isolate and work with one “effect” at a time. Don’t overwhelm yourself. for example, if you are not sleeping well, seek help on this one problem.
Try to “use” stress: If you can’t remedy, nor escape from, what is bothering you, flow with it and try to use it in a productive way
Try to be positive: Give yourself messages as to how well you can cope rather than how horrible everything is going to be. “Stress can actually help memory, provided it is short-term and not too severe. Stress causes more glucose to be delivered to the brain, which makes more energy available to neurons. This, in turn, enhances memory formation and retrieval. On the other hand, if stress is prolonged, it can impede the glucose delivery and disrupt memory.”
Most importantly: If stress is putting you in an unmanageable state or interfering with your schoolwork, social and/or work life, seek professional help.
Mom. Time. Mom time.
The one thing I’ve had tremendous difficulty with since this whole baby-havin’ journey started has been figuring out how to manage my time. It seemed (and still seems) like I simply had no time to do anything—do the laundry, clean up after the cats, fix dinner, work out, call my mom—because all of my time has been devoted to chasing after this kid and keeping her laughing and keeping her full and teaching her how to dance and make silly noises and spoiling the shit out of her and yada yada. So basically, I’ve developed this whole What’s the fucking point? attitude as far as starting something if I know I’m not going to have time to finish it. The past few months it’s gotten a little better, especially since I started my thyroid meds, but I’m still not where I want to be as far as managing my time and setting aside this many minutes for this and that many minutes for that and molding myself back into the little ball of energy that I used to be.
But lo! This morning I had an epiphany! I said to myself, SAY JESS! WHY NOT FOCUS ON DOING JUST ONE THING AT A TIME WHEN YOU HAVE A FEW MINUTES TO DO IT? WHY NOT DO THAT, HUH JESS? And so I did! I took the kid downstairs and I threw a load of laundry in. And twenty minutes later, while she was bouncing in her crazy bouncy contraption, I washed her bottles. And shortly after that, I brought her upstairs and while she was lounging in her playpen, full and incapacitated from snacking on boobie food, I found ten minutes to do crunches and pushups.
So in an hour I managed to start the laundry, wash the bottles, feed my kid, and work out. Now, I get that there are plenty of moms reading this right now who are rolling their eyes and saying “Well duh, dumbass. I figured that shit out fucking years ago.” But this is kind of a huge deal for me. Figuring out this whole time thing has been…well, it’s just been hard. It’s been frustrating. It’s been downright infuriating. And now—I actually feel like I made a breakthrough. I feel optimistic that I might be getting somewhere as far as getting back to normal, and it feels nice.
I’m still searching for a way to set aside five hours to call my mom. She talks a lot. We’ll see…we’ll see.
