Time Strategies

In high school I was a really bad procrastinator, but I would always get assignments done on time which made me believe procrastination wasn't a problem for me. However, doing things at the last minute created unnecessary stress that had negative effects on me. Now that I'm a senior, I feel as though I have gotten better at not procrastinating as much. For this class, I plan on doing assignments before the deadlines to avoid stress since I have other classes to worry about as well. The schedule that was laid out for me will be helpful in allowing me to get my work done at a reasonable time. I'm hoping this will be a semester where I am not that stressed due to my time management strategies.

The first article I read was, "The Important Habit of Just Starting", by Jory Mackay. I found this article to be extremely accurate with my own experiences. For example, it usually takes me a long time to start a major project because of how intimidating it might be. However, once I start I get on a roll and don't stop until it's finished or until I need a short break. I understand the stress associated with not starting a project and knowing that I need to do it in order to achieve some sort of goal. I have used some of the techniques this article mentioned like breaking a project into small sections in order to make it less intimidating. This technique will help me in the future since I want to create a startup. The act of creating a high growth startup is daunting and the results will be unknown for a long time, but being able to break it down and look at it as multiple small goals will help avoid having a fear of starting. 

The second article I read was, "Four Questions to Help You Overcome Procrastination", by Peter Banerjea. This article is similar to the other since it deals directly with procrastination. What I found most interesting was the third question in this article about how to make things easier. This relates to the phrase "work smarter, not harder" which values the quality of the work rather than the quantity. I am an advocate of working smarter since the basic premise of modern innovations has been how to make our lives easier. I see finding shortcuts to solutions as being creative rather than being lazy. This article will also help me in the future because sometimes you need to have an internal conversation to get important things done. 

(Procrastination Flowchart: Phil Venditti, Flickr)