My Experience with Time Management: Primary Research #1

So, this week I decided to reflect on how I actually manage my time and responsibilities, so I took notes on certain tendencies I have and, in this post, I will give those tendencies and give ways on how to improve them.

Starting on Saturday, I usually have work during the day (mid-afternoon shifts) and after work I usually like to hang out with my friends. On Sunday, I usually have work again during the day and then have my Fraternity’s Chapter meeting at night (usually 7pm) and then after that I usually go home and relax. The week days are when I have the most trouble managing my time. On Monday and Wednesday, I have class from 2pm-6:30pm, so If I have a lot of homework for any class besides Accounting 201 I will usually come to school around 10am and go to Lockwood and do what I have to do until I have class. Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have MGA 201 at 1pm, (that class is by far the most difficult class I’m taking this semester and requires the most time) so I will usually get to school at around 10am and go to Lockwood and study the material before class and then after class I will do the homework until I have work which is around 5pm on those days. Friday, I have my recitation (and weekly quiz) for MGA 201 at 2pm, so again I get to Lockwood by 10am and study for that until class, and then I have MGG 303 until 5pm and I’m done for the day.

However, even though that sounded very planned out and organized that’s not the whole truth. I get distracted VERY easily, so even though I’m spending lots of time in Lockwood, I could be on my phone for sometimes 30 minutes straight until I realize oh shoot I have work to do. Also, I tend to sit with my friends in Lockwood and I know that isn’t the smartest thing in the world because you can’t really get much work done with 10 of your friends all sitting together so I realized I have to go to one of the private study booths in Lockwood in order to actually get work done. My problem isn’t that I’m not spending enough time in the library, it’s about how I spend my time in the library.

To correct this, I have realized that I have to put the phone down and concentrate on what I’m doing. In order to do this, I found an app called Flipd, it allows you to lock your phone for a set period of time, and once you do, there’s no going back. As well, I told myself yeah, it’s fun to sit with friends in the library but for my own education sake I need to be in a private setting in order to get work done like the study booths in Lockwood.

With those steps in mind I actually got a lot more work done, for accounting especially I got through the homework in less than hour this past week, keep in mind the past few accounting homeworks would take me almost 2 hours to do. As well, with my phone not vibrating and the temptation of Snapchat and YouTube gone I realized I was able to stay in the ‘work mode’ and get work done in such a shorter amount of time. And finally, I realized just how distracting friends can be, being in that study booth made me more apt to doing work compared to sitting with friends. This experiment worked out for me and I can’t wait to continue this project and learn more about time management and better myself.

Here is the link to the Flipd app: https://www.flipdapp.co/