Mi.cro.man.age

I have several unfinished posts about the romp through paradise that was KWEST, the chaos, insanity, and madness that was CIM (really, they should rebrand it as that - Chaos, Insanity, & Madness) and the odd combination of intense pleasure and unsettling discomfort of being a student again, having my frameworks challenged and my cognitive processes pushed to their limits.

Instead, since I can't seem to get a single blog post finished before something shiny catches my attention (or more likely, I suddenly realize I'm behind on something else, yet again), I spent some time tonight thinking about time management. Today was a real milestone, the last day of CIM, and as such we have been granted a brief reprieve. We are still in the middle of a pre-term class, and there is much reading, homework, and studying to do but most of the other activities will drop off for a week before Fall term kicks off.

In the last 2 weeks, I have already experienced much of what has been documented by generations of Kelloggers before us: FOMO, piles of reading, endless social calendar, CIM-SARS (or CIM H1N1 as it was for us this year), group meetings that drag , and as a result my iCal has been bursting at the seams and I have felt frantic and harried. And that was just the first two weeks, when 79% of our activities did not matter! There has to be a better way, because that is definitely will not be sustainable when I have 4 classes + NBI + GIM leadership + consulting club + networking & recuriting + + +

I decided to budget my time, but I wanted to go a step further. Budgeting does no good unless I can compare against actuals (I've read many times that people are invariably surprised by what they actual spend their time doing) and then adjust either my expectations, my plan or my behavior. So I turned to the internet, and found a little time tracking tool that I can access from my iPhone at all times, I have put my categories in, and I plan to start measuring my time.

I have no idea how realistic this will be to keep up in the long term, but I feel I should at least give it whirl before classes start to at least see what my actual behavior is producing. Regardless of longevity, even if I can just get a week or two of data of how I spend every minute of every day will be eye-opening and motivate me to make behavioral corrections. Lastly, the budget was absolutely necessary; without solidly carving out time to exercise or maintain my network I know those would quickly fall by the wayside. If you are curious, here is my first draft of the ideal use of a 168 hour week: