Day 146: How to Manage Time and Set Priorities

Feeling sore all over
Just got a postcard from Thailand
It's 12:29 PM

Read this and do it, everyone. Yeah. All of you. Now shoo.

How to Manage Time and Set Priorities
Good time management means defining priorities and scheduling activities.

What Are the 3 Rules for Effective Time Management?

1. Don't create impossible situations.
2. Define priorities.
3. Avoid distractions and lack of focus.

Don't Create Impossible Situations.

Don't get trapped into doing too much. Don't try to work full time and take a full load. Don't take too many lab classes. Use time to create success, not failure. Be realistic about school. For most classes, plan to study 2 hours for every 1 hour of class.

Make time your friend
not your enemy.

Identify your first priority classes and do whatever it takes to succeed. Drop second priority classes or reduce work hours if necessary.

Define Your Priorities Using the 3-List Method.

Plan your work,
then work your plan
All time management begins with planning. Use lists to set priorities, plan activities and measure progress. One approach is the 3-list method.

List #1 - The weekly calendar.
Create a weekly calendar. Make it your basic time budgeting guide. List your courses, work, study time, recreation, meals, TV, relaxation, etc.

Plan to study first priority classes when you work best. Be flexible, adapt your schedule to changing needs. Keep your schedule handy and refer to it often. If it doesn't work, change it.

List #2 - The daily "Things to Do".
Write down all the things that you want to do today. Note homework due or tests or subjects you want to emphasize. Include shopping and personal calls, etc.

This list is a reminder. Use it to set daily priorities and to reduce decision-making and worry. If time is tight, move items to your long-term list.

Rewrite this list each morning. Use visualization to help you focus on what to do. This list is also a measure of your day-to-day success. Check off items as you finish them and praise yourself for each accomplishment.

List #3 - Goals and other things.
This can be one or two lists, a monthly list and or a long-term list. Put down your goals and things you have to do. What do you want to accomplish over the next month or year? What do you need to buy?

Use this list to keep track of all your commitments. If you're worried about something, put it on this list. The purpose of this list is to develop long-term goals and to free your mind to concentrate on today.

Avoid Distractions and Lack of Focus.

Time is precious. Yet many people waste time by getting stuck in one or more of the following habits.

Procrastination - putting off important jobs.

Crises management - being overwhelmed by the current crisis. No time for routine matters.

Switching and floundering - lack of concentration and focus on one job.

Television, telephones and friends - these are all ways of avoiding work.

Emotional blocks - boredom, daydreaming, stress, guilt, anger and frustration reduce concentration.

Sickness - getting sick and blowing your schedule.

In all of these cases, the first step is to recognize the problem and resolve to improve. Use priority lists to focus attention. Try positive self-talk. To avoid distractions, find a quiet place to study, the library or a study hall. Get an answering machine.

Copyright 1991 Donald Martin, How to be a Successful Student

Day 143: Wha.. ?

Sometimes coming into
A new world
So buzzing, puzzling, dazzling
I don't know where to turn to
I don't know who to turn to
I don't know what, when
And don't know why
Can someone lead me?
Guide me?
Hide me?
Take this pain away.
Far away.
Away.
Just away.

Maybe it's just because
This new swirl conjures from me
Indifference?
Insignificance?
Pointless malignant mannerism?

No cigarettes, have I started from way ago
Now, l'il cigarette, with a puff 'n two I go
And with three, four, and more numbers mowed
Tension and anger ... then the first pack I just towed
Into my bag pocket
There, in you go!
Lighting up like a rocket
Discreet, with my lips they meet
Puff, puff - there you go!
One, two
More in you go!

But what assistance,
malignance,
indifference
do you bring, oh bringer of
Wooziness
Dizziness
Haziness
And Jazziness..

My mind cannot take it
Nor face it
Evade it
Avoid it

My conscience just takes it
Faces it
Fails to evade it
Or avoid it
All together
As one, together
More together
Together, together

Puff, puff
One, two

Puff, puff
Three, four

Where do I go?
Where do we go?
What more do you want, world?
What more do you want?

I am sick and tired of your inevitable hardships
Inevitable they are, I still spit from my lips
These thousand blights and thousand threats,
Oh I cannot, cannot, cannot
Cannot!
Blight me,
Fill me with sorrow,
For 'morrow, and its 'morrow,
Fill me with anguish
Unquenchable and Everflowing
Evergrowing

And then again, oh beautiful, oh!
I'm always thinking of you
My eternal worry
Can't stop thinking of you

Touch me in the morning
And last thing at night
Punish my mind and body
You know it feels right

Take a little higher
Tell me what you're feeling
Tell me what's happening
And why, why, why

We can only understand what we are shown
How was I supposed to know our mutualism would grow

Move a little closer, lady
Things sure are looking up
Kill me with your one, two
Three and four
I want you so much
I need you so much

Then again, why do you bring me
Bring me these tears
Tears of unidentifiable origins
Schmorigins, Morigins,
Why
Why
Why

I'm in pain, but nobody knows
Are you in pain? Nobody knows
Why don't you open yourself?
Nobody knows
A closeted bookshelf
Nobody cares
Open,
Open,
Now or never
Moreover, Never Ever

A teardrop,
One, two,
Invisible, Unseen
three and four
A cracking
One, but not two, three nor four
Anguish and gnashing
Five, six, and a lot more
The eyes,
Blink one, two, maybe three and four
But the heart
Once, but not twice, thrice or more

Help, help
Listen to my cry
I plead, and I plead
but will I not audibly cry!
Listen, listen
Listen to my cry
I'll plead, and I'll plead
Listen to my cry

I plead and I plead
Listen to my cry
With bloody knuckles and tired knees,
I cry and I plead on my hands and knees

Why? Why?

Day 141.5: Why do so many believe in Jesus?

Why do so many believe in Jesus? Because they don’t actually know what the Bible says.

By theBEattitude.com

The majority of Christians in America are biblically illiterate.

This is kind of a big deal considering the Bible is the foundation and basis for their belief system and reason for living. Does anyone else find it odd that so many Christians are willfully illiterate to something so pivotal in their lives?

Here are a few statistics:

• 93% of Americans have a Bible.¹
• Only half of Americans can even name one of the Gospels.¹
• The majority of Americans don’t know that Genesis is the first book of the Bible.¹
• 60% of evangelicals think Jesus was born in Jerusalem rather than Bethlehem.¹
• 22% of high school students think Moses was one of Jesus’ disciples.¹
• Half of High School seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple.¹
• 1 in 10 Americans believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.¹
• 60% of Americans can’t name 5 of the ten commandments.¹
• Given thirteen basic teachings from the Bible, only 1% of adult believers embraced all thirteen as being biblical perspectives.²
• One-third of college attending Christians could not put the following in order: Abraham, the Old Testament prophets, the death of Christ, and Pentecost.³
• One-third could also not identify Matthew as an apostle from a list of New Testament names.³

Many Americans continue to believe that a Jewish man from 2,000 years ago was God’s son … simply because someone told them so when they were a child. This is the equivalent to believing in Santa Claus as an adult. If you choose to worship Jesus every Sunday, at least take the time to read the book about him. Otherwise you’re nothing more than a lemming.

Obama Admits to Smoking on Occasion

Obama admits to smoking on occasion

Posted: 08:43 PM ET

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Barack Obama said Tuesday that he is "95 percent cured" of his smoking habit, "but there are times I mess up."

Obama said "that as a former smoker, I constantly struggle with it. … Have I fallen off the wagon? Yes."

Obama noted he is not a daily smoker and "doesn't do it in front of" his children.

The president argued that a new law providing for FDA regulation of tobacco "is not about me. It's about the next generation of kids coming up."

The president made his remarks during a news conference at the White House.

Day 141: How to Not Be Happy pt III

Feeling like the world's coming down on me
Listening to Erik Fendik comment on some movie
It's 12:50 AM
And I am pissed off

Looking for a way to be happy is one thing, but looking for a way not to be happy is another. Completely different. Absolutely, positively, yes yes yes. Why? Go figure.

I am particularly disappointed at how Middlebury College students throw a baby tantrum over how bad the dining hall food tastes. Every time a disgruntled undergrad comments on how the chocolate brownie should taste like this, how the oatmeal raisin cookies should be banned, or how the salmon should be cooked to their own damned taste, I feel an irresistable urge to reward them.

To reward them with a solid pummeling. Words won't do. Actions speak louder. Physical pummeling? Bingo.

I just can't understand why all these spoiled kids believe that they are somehow magically entitled to the most delicious, lip-smacking meals. What- is it just because the $50,000 comprehensive fee you pay - scratch that - your parents pay every year for your bachelor's?

Do you even understand what people have to go through to bring you the quality education and standard of living you experience right here in Middlebury College? This isn't Africa, so I won't bring up examples from the spectrum's extreme, but an example, a real one, I will illustrate for you is this:

Snap. You see a chocolate chip cookie on the cookie platter in Ross dining hall. You put three on your plate, and go back to your table. You pick up one of the cookies. You take a bite.

Little did you know that in order for this cookie to be made, someone had to mix a great amount of ingredients together into cookie batter. That person, along with his or her assistant(s), then had to go scoop each and every fucking piece of batter, fucking line them up on the pan, and fucking bake 'em in the fucking oven. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And for your information, people have to do this for the 76,000 fucking yearly cookie quota just for Ross.

Snap. The chocolate chip cookie tastes yuck today. You put down the rest of the cookie, and you decide to leave the other ones alone. "The dining staff sucks," you comment to your table friends.

You're an asshole.

The dining staff has to go through the same kind of process to make all the different kinds and styles of food you see in Ross. And in Proctor. And in FIC and Atwater. You're just too fucking cold and heartless to even consider that this was made by people, NOT fucking machines, fucker.

But you know what, I guess this goes the same way for everyone, too. Not just Middlebury College. Other schools. Amherst, Yale, Williams, Harvard, and so on. And everyone else in the world.

Have some decency, people. DECENCY!