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January 20, 2009

How To Organize Your Day Part Dos

My Love

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post. I use steps below when organizing my day. Hope it helps. If you want to add anything, feel free to leave a comment.

1. “The list”

In case some of you forgot, few weeks ago I wrote about making an effective to-do list. An effective to do list is your foundation to creating an organized schedule. Creating an effective to do list includes prioritizing your list and making it happen. Like with any type of prioritizing, you list the important ones first. When you’re doing your listing, do nothing else except the listing. Set aside 20-30 minutes to think about things that needs to get done within the next few days, weeks, or months. Also here are some things to keep in mind when prioritizing your list; final dates, how long it’s going to take, where is it, how big is it, just to name a few. Every events, have different things to keep in mind.

2. Divide and conquer

Once you have an effective list, decided how you want to divvy up your schedule. Do you want to plan days ahead? Weeks ahead? Hours ahead? (I wouldn’t suggest you do hours…) Months ahead? Remember to not go too far ahead. I personally go by weekly planning. For example, If you have a project that is due in a couple of weeks, divide that project within the next two weeks. Don’t let everything build up to just a day before. That would take away the idea of planning! duh! I know many of you works well under pressure, but let me assure you, working under less pressure is less taxing on the mind and the body.

3. Write everything down

If you feel that you’re going to forget something, chances are… you will forget it. So always write down everything! Even if it is a simple task. By writing it down, you will record it in your head. You know one of those feelings that you get like you’re forgetting something really really important? Well, if you have your things organized and written down in your planner, you can get rid of that feeling by going over your planner.

4. Make a habit of checking

Once you have everything down, you have to remember the things that you put in your planner/ organizer. You can do this by making a habit out of checking your organizer. You don’t have to check it every half hours, maybe check it every few hours or when you fee like you forgetting something. By checking your organizer and making sure your day-to-day list is getting done you will be able to use your time more efficiently. anyway, it defeats the purpose of having a planner if you never look at it.

-I’m still here

Posted by admin on

January 19, 2009

How I Learned to Organize My Day, the Hard Way Part Uno

Story of my life

When I used to intern for Disney, my work schedule shot up dramatically. My work week went from a wee 4-6 hours a week coaching to a whopping 30-40 hours per week. It was a huge jump and I wasn’t used to it. To tell you the truth, It killed me. Big time. The internship with Disney was my first time having a “part-time” job that required that many hours per week. While working that many hours per week, I became aware that my time is precious. I had to learn to juggle a job, an internship,and school. Also at this time, I was immersed in starting Incarnate Clothing. So between the job, internship, school, and my own start-up, I was swamped. I find myself saying: “What the hell are you doing?”

After that brutal realization, I knew I had to take better control of my time. I began to organize my day. Keep in mind, I have never had the need to keep track of my activities. Before the internship, I had school and I work 2 hours a day. No big deal. No need for fancy planning. But juggling all my activities proved to be very tricky. Lucky for me, Disney gave all their interns day planners (Insert sarcastic “Yay” here). Keep in mind by this time I also own an iPhone and a Macbook Pro fully equipped with iCal of course.

This sounds a tad excessive, but by then I had 3 calendars in which I organize my week. The three consists of: My Disney planner, iPhone calendar, and iCal from my Macbook pro. For those of you wondering how I used to organize my day, here’s what my “routines” used to look like.

I had classes everyday in the morning, in which my planner will always be with me. Thinking that writing things down during class is so much faster for me than typing it into my phone, I would write some to-do’s on the planner. When I go home, I type up the exact dates and events from my planner into iCal on my laptop. Then I take about 3 seconds syncing my iPhone with my laptop (God bless Apple). Later on that day, I would head to work. At work, I wouldn’t lug my planner around; It’s big, it doesn’t fit in my pocket, it’s just impractical. But guess what? I have my phone with me! (Insert another sarcasm here) When needed I can always check my calendar with my phone and add more stuff to it. Then if anything is changed, I sync my laptop with my phone. Once I added things to my phone, I have to remind myself to write it down on the planner. How complicated is that?! What an idiot. Well, at least writing things down multiple times help me remember it.

Finally realizing the ridiculousness of my procedure, i just scrap the daily planner. I just use iCal now and if anything major changes, I’ll sync it with my phone. I have been thinking of scrapping both iCal and the calendar in my phone and use Gmail Calendar instead. It would cut down my input time by a lot. I just keep worrying that I won’t have access to the internet when I need it the most. You know what, now that I think about it, I SHOULD change to Gmail Calendar. Wow, sometimes reading your thoughts in writing really put things in perspective.

Anyway, even though my procedure of jotting down might change from one format to another. The habits stays the same. In tomorrow’s post I will share with you some of the steps that I would take to organize my day. See you tomorrow.

-I’m still here

Posted by admin on

December 4, 2008

How To “List” Like a Pro

As college students, we all have a lot of things to do in a day-to-day basis. We have school, work, homework, friends, girlfriends/boyfriends/spouses, sports, side businesses, and many other activities. On some days it is very hard to find time to fit everything in. Through trial and error, I have learned a few steps in which I can prioritize and maximize my day.

1. Make a habit of planning the night before
Set aside about 5-10 minutes before you go to sleep to go over things that you need to do the next day. Really take the time to actually think it through and make sure you do not forget anything. Here are some questions that you can ask yourself when you’re brainstorming:

Do I need to turn in anything?
Who do I have to meet?
What time are my classes?
What time is work?
Do I need to call so-and-so?

2. List, list, list!
While you’re brainstorming about the things that you need to do tomorrow, write them down. It doesn’t have to be neat, just make sure it is legible. Write all the things that you remember.

3. Its prioritizing time!
When you’re done writing everything down, put numbers next to them in order of importance. One being the most important and ten being the least important…or whatever numbering system you feel comfortable using. Why do I write them down first and THEN put numbers on them? Because by JUST writing things down (without prioritizing them), your brain will only focus on remembering things that needs to get done and not worry about putting them in order of importance yet. Some things to keep in mind when you’re prioritizing:

When is the deadline?
How hard is it to accomplish?
Where is it?
How long will it take?

Don’t worry if you have a long list. In fact, make them long. Don’t be afraid to write a lot, but realize you won’t accomplish all of it.

4. Review
Once you finish your list check it once… check it twice. Make sure you have everything there.

5. Doing it
Remember, a plan is nothing until you put it into action. So the next day, when you have your list ready, set out to accomplish each part of the list. If you can accomplish everything that’s good; if you can’t, don’t worry about it! Keep track of the things that you did or did not do and it will help you learn to manage time more efficiently.

In the beginning, taking time to prepare the list sounds very time consuming. Well, it is! But as you get used to it, it will go faster. Also keep track of all the lists on a day to day basis. So you can see how much you’ve progressed through out the year. Maybe you start on January 10th accomplishing 7 things a day and ended up December 12th accomplishing 14 things a day.

-I’m still here

By a student for the students

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