manage my time better

School started 6 weeks ago and I was determined to be more organized. I actually was for at least the first 3 weeks, which I guess is an accomplishment. Now, I have fallen into old habits and I am miserable again! I think that I need to really take an honest look at all the things that I have to do, all of the things I want to do, and the time I have available to do it all in. Right now I feel a bit like I’m just spinning my tires!

I have been doing so bad with this! I made this awesome schedule and I haven’t kept to it at all! I’m starting to get really frustrated with myself and I just don’t know how to get more disciplined.

I guess that I’ll just keep working at it!

My procrastination issues and my lack of time managment ability have gelled together to make me be way less productive than I can be. Today I am getting started laying the groundwork for this goal! After reading through some of the links and posts from other folks I think that I am going to use a method called “timeboxing” (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2004/10/timeboxing/). I am also going to significantly cut my TV and computer time.

I feel really postitive about this and hope that this will lead to me accomplishing more of my goals.

Quote from Timeboxing:
“I use timeboxing is when I have a task or project that I wish to complete, but I don’t really know where to begin, or it seems like it’s going to be a long time before I can finish a meaningful chunk. Or maybe it’s something I find really tedious and would have a tendency to procrastinate on. Then I use timeboxing to simply commit to working on the task for a given period of time to make a dent in it. I normally use a period in the range of 30-120 minutes. I release any concern about reaching a particular milestone within that time — I simply commit to putting in the time, regardless of how far I get. An example where I use this approach would be when I’m writing a new article. Finishing a complete article will usually take me 3-8 hours. Sometimes I can complete an article in a single stretch, but most of the time I’ll stretch it over multiple sessions. So I use timeboxing to just put a dent in the article and get started, committing myself to writing for 1-2 hours without worrying about how far I get. Then I just repeat the process until the work is complete.
A side effect of this last method is that I’ll often end up working much longer than I originally intended. If I commit to working on a tedious task for just 30 minutes, it’s easy to get started because I’ve given myself permission to stop after only 30 minutes. But once I’ve overcome that inertia and am now focused on the task, 90 minutes may pass before I even feel the desire to stop.”