My Thoughts on Time Strategies

The two articles I read for this assignment were Jory MacKay's The Important Habit of Just Starting and Lauren Marchese's The Psychology of Checklists: Why Setting Smaller Goals Motivates Us to Accomplish Bigger Things. I found MacKay's piece particularly interesting because I often find it difficult to start working on things like papers and projects, even ones I am excited to do. I never really understood why I was so adverse to starting these sorts of things as I enjoy writing, but this article sheds light on how fears of failure and focusing on short-term rewards can stop people from starting whatever it is they need to start. The simple idea of just starting something can actually be very difficult for some people, myself included, so I found it useful to see the reasons why this is difficult and strategies for, and benefits to, simply starting, all laid out in a short article. I often have to tell myself to just start and I always find it much easier to do the work than I worried it would be. For papers, once I have written the first one or two pages, the rest comes much easier. Same with projects--once the project has been started, I find it much easier to work on it and feel more relaxed than when I procrastinate.

I also enjoyed Marchese's article because I find that I really enjoy having checklists and being able to check the items on the list off as I go. I appreciate the way that the author gives advise on how to break up goals and create doable checklists in order to maintain motivation, which, as she points out, many people struggle with when doing projects or anything long-term. I already make good use of checklists and make sure to break down goals into smaller pieces, but I enjoyed learning why this helps motivate people and how to best use checklists to organize projects and maintain motivation throughout the process. I personally enjoy making schedules for myself, with tasks broken up into one to two hour segments, which I find helps keep stress levels to a minimum as I find it easier to stay organized and to get a lot done without feeling overloaded or worn out. I pretty much have to have good time management what with work, school, and other aspects of my life that make my days busy and sometimes hectic. Overall, I found both of these articles very informative and helpful and intend to use the strategies they suggest (or continue using some strategies) throughout the semester in order to stay on top of my workload (or in front of the workload, as with this class!).

Photo by Ciocci. Source: Flickr