The Psych Behind Time Management

Continuing on my posts on How to Master Productivity and Organization [click here to see the last one], I am continuing to Chapter 1: "The Psychology Behind Time Management" from the book To-Do List Mastery.

There are three elements of time management include Awareness, Organization, and Commitment.

Awareness is all about taking the time to recognize the situation you are in, what you have to work with, and work accordingly to it. As the book says on page 12, you want to

"recognize the importance of time and budget it accordingly.”

For me, this means that

I had to begin to look at the time available to me during and after school to know where I could budget time for my work.

Organization is basically organizing your life to simplify it and get things done faster. As it says on page 13,

"Time spent deciding on a place for everything and continuing to keep items in their assigned places means significantly less time spent looking for a specific report or tool that is usually needed right that moment.”

Before this book, I would do homework on my couch or on my bed, which wasn't very effective. I had no place to study in my house except the dining room because we had a lot of stuff packed on the desk in loft. However, I didn't like to study there even when it was clean because I could always hear my mom talking on the phone or the TV. This is not a good idea for visual learners like me. I decided to reorganize my desk and move it into my bedroom.

I reorganized my bedroom to replace my old wardrobe with a desk, a vision wall, my calendar and file cabinet. I created a calm and inspiring workspace to encourage me to be productive by also getting calm candles and a few Spotify playlists that weren't distracting and that support thinking. I already have the supplies for all of my classes, have written all the deadlines for important college applications on my calendar, as well as breaks, and color coded my calendar for orange and white days at my school.

Commitment just means committing to the process. It sounds easy, doesn't it? Trust me; it's not. You have to REALLY want it!

If you don't have commitment, you won't be able to get organized, be productive, or get things done.

“[Commitment] helps you focus on checking tasks off your to-do list that have been completed in a mature and quality manner. ” (page 14) For me, this meant that I needed to inspire myself and put in a lot of effort in commitment to acquire long-term success in time management across all areas of my life. To start this, I spent my summer mostly building up my study habits and studying some material for the classes that I will be taking during the school year. It is something that I wish I had done last year. I made a vision wall dedicated to keeping me on track. I have also been practicing my new notes technique for school to do better in my final year of school. Hopefully, this will benefit me in the long run.

First Part: I take regular outline notes on the right side with commentary on the left side in class. Right after class, I will take 10 minutes to highlight info, designating a color to a type of info.

Second Part: I rewrite my notes in color using what I highlighted and draw in diagrams and pictures to remember info, processes and facts. After this, I write questions on sticky notes that I form off of reading my notes.

New notes plan

First Part: I take regular outline notes on the right side with commentary on the left side in class. Right after class, I will take 10 minutes to highlight info, designating a color to a type of info.

Second Part: I rewrite my notes in color using what I highlighted and draw in diagrams and pictures to remember info, processes and facts. After this, I write questions on sticky notes that I form off of reading my notes.

I hope this blog post has been really helpful for you! I wish I had gotten this information when I was younger. It would have benefited me a lot more to know that only reading your notes and going to class wouldn't cut it, even though this method worked for me up to my Junior Year. Now, I know what to do to work with my harder college-level classes. Have a great week guys; never forget that you are a Super Student in Progress!