[06.December.2017 - Dies Academicus ]

How to Handle Having TOO MUCH To Do

So let’s say you’re in the same boat I am (this is a running theme, have you noticed?) and you’ve just got, like, SO MUCH STUFF that HAS to get done YESTERDAY or you will DIE (or fail/get fired/mope). Everything needs to be done yesterday, you’re sick, and for whatever reason you are focusing on the least important stuff first. What to do!

Take a deep breath, because this is a boot camp in prioritization.

Make a 3 by 4 grid. Make it pretty big. The line above your top row goes like this: Due YESTERDAY - due TOMORROW - due LATER. Along the side, write: Takes 5 min - Takes 30 min - Takes hours - Takes DAYS.

Divide ALL your tasks into one of these squares, based on how much work you still have to do. A thank you note for a present you received two weeks ago? That takes 5 minutes and was due YESTERDAY. Put it in that square. A five page paper that’s due tomorrow? That takes an hour/hours, place it appropriately. Tomorrow’s speech you just need to rehearse? Half an hour, due TOMORROW. Do the same for ALL of your tasks

Your priority goes like this:

5 minutes due YESTERDAY

5 minutes due TOMORROW

Half-hour due YESTERDAY

Half-hour due TOMORROW

Hours due YESTERDAY

Hours due TOMORROW

5 minutes due LATER

Half-hour due LATER

Hours due LATER

DAYS due YESTERDAY

DAYS due TOMORROW

DAYS due LATER

At this point you just go down the list in each section. If something feels especially urgent, for whatever reason - a certain professor is hounding you, you’re especially worried about that speech, whatever - you can bump that up to the top of the entire list. However, going through the list like this is what I find most efficient.

Some people do like to save the 5 minute tasks for kind of a break between longer-running tasks. If that’s what you want to try, go for it! You’re the one studying here.

So that’s how to prioritize. Now, how to actually do shit? That’s where the 20/10 method comes in. It’s simple: do stuff like a stuff-doing FIEND for 20 minutes, then take a ten minute break and do whatever you want. Repeat ad infinitum. It’s how I’ve gotten through my to do list, concussed and everything.

You’ve got this. Get a drink and start - we can do our stuff together!

I don’t know how I can be so ambitious and so lazy in the same time.

some days, you're a goddess of productivity; others, it takes you two hours to read one article and do one page of notes. be kind to yourself.

bonus picture of my favorite distraction, who i had to kick out of my room because he kept playing with the papers on my desk while i was working.

07.07.19 

believe in yourself. 🌿

24.8.2019

~top tip~

paper-sized whiteboards (yes like the ones we used to use in school) are l i f e s a v e r s for chemistry / organic chem reaction mechanisms, and for practicing drawing molecules!!

ft. Bakelit Herstellung aus Formaldehyd & Phenol

one of my only real issues with studyblr is that it just ?? makes me want to study everything ?? like i’ll see a law student and be like,, damn I wanna learn law now !! or i’ll see a medicine student and decide I want to learn medicine or see a physics student and decide I want to be a physicist and I just ??? want to learn everything ever ??

I’m currently so overwhelmed by all the unread books I own… And the books I don’t own but need to read.