I’m deep into the time-sucking vortex that is my senior year of college. Filled with crippling dread that I would graduate without having accomplished anything truly meaningful at UC Davis, I took on more commitments than was probably advisable. Sitting in a coffee shop right now as I write this, I have a crap-ton of work to do. Maybe I will end the quarter in December crying out of stress, or maybe I’ll will have used my time-constrained schedule to more amazing things than otherwise would be possible. I prefer the latter.
Juggling classes, clubs, and jobs is also a great opportunity to play with new apps and workflows. I can’t help myself.
So far, I have quite enjoyed wearing my Apple Watch as a companion through the day. I use the Utility Watch Face with widgets showing my calendar and to-do list. This has forced me to become very organized with my calendar. Everything I do needs to be on my calendar, or else it won’t show up on my watch, and I won’t do it. My wrist is a perfect place for this kind of information. My on-deck events are always just a glance away.
Less successful, so far, is my method for handling to-do list items: tasks that are not time specific, but need to be completed by a specific time. Homework and podcast editing fit in this description. There is probably an ideal time to work on a certain homework assignment, but it is less obvious when that should be. Some reasons for this:
- It is difficult to know how long tasks take to complete.
- I don’t personally enjoy certain tasks.
- They involve coordinating with other people, and thus are less in my control.
Item number 1 from above is probably the most easily overcome. I just need to look ahead. I have an assignment for my computer networks class due on Tuesday. Sitting right here on Friday, I know that it will take me around 3 hours to complete (possibly an overestimate, but something in that ballpark). What I normally do is let the stress of the impending task overwhelm me until I am shamed into completing it. But that’s a system for a guy with more available time on his hands. I’m no longer that guy.
My hypothesis on the best way to deal with tasks is to schedule them in my calendar. I think Todoist has a feature that will assist me in this. Otherwise, I can just add it as a regular calendar event. In a way, this is a way to receive notifications from a more-optimistic, less stressed version of myself. Looking at my watch, it may be comforting to see a signal from past me shelling out words of wisdom:
“Hey buddy, you might not remember this, but I took a look at your schedule and this is THE ONLY AVAILABLE time you have to finish your damn homework. Don’t get lazy and screw me over.”
We’ll see how it goes.
