It’s that time again. Time to kick those old habits out the window and rev up those new year’s resolutions.
For so many at Loyola these resolutions quickly become lost in between class, schoolwork, jobs and the all-important weekend timeout. So how should we go about streamlining our life and fulfilling those lofty goals that so often slip through the cracks?
According to Valerie Andrews, mass communication professor, setting goals and having a reward when they are achieved is key to success.
“I hate doing housework. I knew that I was going to have to do one hour of schoolwork and one hour of housework or else everything would get out of control. So I put 14 marbles in a jar, and every time I did an hour of schoolwork or housework, I took a marble out of the jar. The sooner the jar is empty, the more of the week, or weekend, you have to enjoy,” Andrews said.
After that, Andrews said, it is important to develop a system that tailors to your organizational habits.
For Angela Cardon, film studies junior, technology is the answer.
“The iPhone has saved my life.
I think the way to be successful in time management is having a planner, being able to visually see it and being able to map out your week into little square blocks telling you what you need to do and what you need to accomplish, because you can’t rely on your brain,” Cardon said.
For Andrew Nelson, mass communication professor, having time to focus on one activity at a time makes time management easier.
“I have to be very focused because I have a lot of things I’m juggling during a respective day. I tend to divide up chunks of time and become fairly religious in what I will do during that time. It’s like keeping office hours for yourself. If I’m writing, I will devote two hours to that and do nothing but write,” he said.
When it comes to organizing your workplace, though, there is no one universal system that is most efficient.
Rather, people must decide what works best for them, Nelson said.
Bob Thomas, mass communication professor, agreed. He said that cleanliness in the workplace does not directly correlate to better time management.
“You see people who live in a spotless environment, then people who live in a world of clutter, and both are equally efficient,” Thomas said.
According to Brooks Zitzmann, staff counselor for the University Counseling Center, better time management will help relieve the stress of college life while simultaneously opening up free time to spend enjoying outside of the library.
“Managing your time by prioritizing helps increase your quality because you simply have more time to think about the product you are creating. It also decreases your stress level by not adding the pressure of a tight deadline as well as the original workload,” Zitzmann said.
Patrick Rafferty can be reached at [email protected]
