A Week in the Life

Scheduling my time this week has proved to be nearly impossible. My time commitments changed frequently and the Red Wings, a girlfriend and a few late night movies proved to be distractions that were just too tempting.

In the end, I failed. Instead of having a structured schedule, I’ve been fitting things in when the time presents itself. This I admit has not been extremely efficient, but it has been a bit more practical.

When I started this process I pictured myself using a chart to account for every hour. Inevitably, I fell back into my old ways, making excuses and justifying my frequent study breaks.

So here I am, a Sunday afternoon, and I still have a pile of work awaiting me. My original schedule would have had me finishing my last hour of studying, but now, I am just beginning.

Taking note of my time usage has been a valuable experience. I’ve learned how easy it is to become distracted and how quickly the most earnest plans go awry. I’ve also been reminded that regardless how inefficient my time usage is, the work still needs to get done.

The original idea of planning all my time proved to be ineffective. Instead what I have learned to do is to keep track of my responsibilities and to estimate how long they will take to complete. By keeping track of what I have to do, I am better at getting all my work done and adapting as my schedule changes (or when I succumb to distractions).

I have failed at developing a perfect system for efficient time use, but I have learned what types of systems don’t work.

Finals week starts tomorrow!

Planning out my entire day did not go well. Today was not a typical day, with final exams on their way, many of my regular classes have been shortened which through off my schedule.

For example, my urban planning class was about an hour and a half shorter today. With all my new free time, I thought I’d be able to goof off for a while instead of starting my work right away. Unfortunately, this only resulted in me wasting time beyond the hour and a half and still deviating from my schedule.

Another thing I learned about time management is that it is difficult to deal with the unpredictable. Today at work for instance, I had a rough outline of what I would do, but changing demands made it tough to stick to a schedule. When I begin to deviate from the schedule, slowly everything falls apart.

Luckily I was assigned an 11-15 page paper today (Hooray!). This will be the perfect test of my time management ability, especially because I plan on doing the paper in one sitting (Uh-oh!).

I want to do the paper in a lab-like setting. So I need to go to a place with few friends and distractions. If I am able to distill my environment to a blank slate, I will be able to reduce extraneous variables and test my true abilities. I need to find some sort of study pod. Hopefully I can find a corner in the library that is not too packed with last minute studiers. Any suggestions on a vacant area? I was thinking something along the lines of Scandinavian modern art or French-Canadian poetry. If you know of an empty quite place to study, post it below! I’m open to all sorts of suggestions.

Two days before final exam madness begins and I still feel a bit unprepared for a study marathon. Wish me luck!

Today I tracked the source of my time wasting. Here are where most of my precious minutes and seconds go:

Social Networking: Facebook and Twitter take up tons of my time. When I use these sites, I don’t browse them at length, but rather I visit them frequently for short periods of time throughout my study session. Like a nicotine addict on a smoke break, when I feel stress or confusion from an assignment, I instinctively log on for some sort of micro-break. In the past during final exam, I’ve had my friend Dithu, who goes to school in St. Louis, change my passwords to deny me access. This, however, has been an ineffective solution for everyday usage. (Also, I spent even more time trying to guess the password.)

Food: Often when studying, I eat a lot. I make the excuse that I need the proper energy for studying. As someone who eats in a cafeteria, I have an unlimited amount of food for quick snack breaks. Also, I run to 7-11 for coffee and energy drinks. I make myself so alert that my hopped up brain often is more keen to search Wikipedia or make phone calls than it is to focus on the assignment.

Dorm Life: Living in the dorms is also an easy way to get distracted from doing work. Friends are literally everywhere, and even if I have hours of work to do, someone is there to suggest a quick video game, a movie or a series of important YouTube videos. Even in the study lounge, other desperate students looking for a distraction from economics or calculus will want to chat.

Cell Phone: My cell phone can be a huge time waster. A 15-minute phone call can become an hour in an instant and text messages can go on late into the night. I would leave my phone in my room, but I often use it to call other students and ask questions. Also my reliance on technology makes me feel naked and vulnerable without my phone.

Tomorrow, I will combat my time wasting by establishing a strict schedule. I will then attempt to follow it exactly. I will budget time for breaks and budget time for work. I will also take note of times where I stray from the schedule.

Wish me luck! I need to be ready to focus for upcoming final exams.

I am the ultimate time waster. Like grains of sand falling between my fingers, I lose minutes and hours with ease. When I sit down to do a project, I typically make an estimate of how much time it will take, but for some reason a four-hour project began at 6:00 p.m. does not get completed until 3:00 a.m. Where do these hours go?

It’s not like I don’t get my work done. Some of my best papers (4.0s!) have been written in the wee hours of the morning while under the influence of cheap coffee. Why do I allow myself to wait until such a late hour? Do I enjoy the pressure of the rising sun as a stop watch or is this simply part of college culture? I’d like to think I enjoy the privacy of a study lounge emptied at midnight.

How can I combat this unnecessary procrastination?

This week, I will attempt to do so by first monitoring my time wasting habits and then developing strict schedules of time usage and attempt to adhere to them.

One of my biggest foes is the internet. When researching for work or school, I too often find myself clicking on off-topic links and reading useless material. Often I attempt to legitimize this as “self-education.” If I’m working on an English paper, but read six articles on urban planning, I tell myself that I’m not wasting time, but actually learning more about my major.

Earlier this week I spent nearly an hour on Wikipedia.com reading about Central European history instead of writing a paper. Sure, I learned a lot about the development of Polish cavalry swords, but I did very little towards getting my work done.

Tomorrow I will begin to explore the causes for my lack of productivity by recording incidents in which I stray from the task at hand. The goal will be to find patterns in my time wasting. By better understanding this time wasting, I can learn to ways to be more efficient. With final exams only a week away, I hope to become a more focused student in time for the next week’s insane study periods.

There’s a party going on. All your friends are going. They’re excited about it. You’re well aware it’s happening. You’re not invited. It feels awful, right?

That’s how I’ve felt this week. I’ve been wondering about the musings I’ve been missing on Twitter, the “news” I haven’t been reading in the blogosphere, the ever-entertaining arguments of commenters I haven’t been able to laugh at on various forums. It’s sad and it’s pathetic, but it’s the truth. And I only blog the truth.

The sheer torment of not being able to read your friends’ thoughts and share your own accordingly is bad enough. But then there are the, “Did you see her Facebook?” comments and the e-mails telling me people are asking to be my friend, some one new is following me, I’m in a photo, someone has updated their blog never stop. Hell, I looked up a definition on m-w.com and there was an option for me to share that with people on Facebook, MySpace, Reddit, Digg, Stumble, Furl…

I’ve realized how insane it all it is and like to think I am better for having realized this.

That said, I logged back on last night at 12:28 a.m. I was awake, working on a final paper, and as soon as I noticed the time, I was back in action. I had missed event invitations, a million blog posts to read and who knows how many tweets to scroll through. I half expected to catch myself clicking through all the updates of the past week, fervently trying to piece together what had gone on in my absence, but I didn’t. My triumphant return to social networking only lasted about 15 minutes. After that, I went to sleep. Why? Because I don’t care that much anymore.

Even though I found myself logging on as soon as humanly possible, it wasn’t really because I wanted to be distracted. I had been blazing through a 10-page paper for the past four hours and was making a lot of progress without the distraction of Facebook or Twitter. I wasn’t thinking about logging on until the clock struck 12:28 a.m. I was totally focused and I think the only real reason I logged on so soon was because I could finally stop depriving myself. It’s like when you go on a new diet and give up chocolate or something — you want it more simply because you know you can’t have it.

I’m in a better state of mind after logging off for a week straight. I spent a little bit of time catching up this afternoon but haven’t been obsessing. In fact, I’m planning to keep this up, for the most part, until finals are over.
I had hoped this Week in the Life of going off the grid would be something of a case study in obsession, but instead it has opened my eyes to my incredible inability to effectively manage my time and priorities. Yes, there might be a role obsession plays in all this, but I think it has more to do with procrastination and general life avoidance when it really comes down to it.

I don’t want to write 10-page papers about Immanuel Kant. I can avoid doing them by clicking through photo albums and tweeting about how much I hate Kant. It takes me away from the task at hand for a few minutes but too long off track and I find my concentration will be shot for the next hour. It’s better to do without than to struggle by dividing your attention between work and social networking.

It’s the last week of class and finals are creeping up behind you. If you get off the grid now, I promise you’ll be more productive and less distracted. You’ll get done what you need to do in a shorter amount of time, leaving you more time to relax and decreasing your stress. I extend the challenge to you, dear reader. Log off now. Your life will thank you later.

The worst part of all this social networking abstinence is sitting down in front of my computer and feeling unsure of what to do next. The best part is eliminating all the options I previously had from my mind and thinking, “Well, I guess I’ll do some homework.”

This is one of the best decisions I’ve made in a while and let’s just say, with me, good life decisions are few and far between.

I’ve been spending less time in front of my computer, a benefit I probably won’t fully appreciate until this weekend when forecasts predict the weather will be beautiful and I’ll be working on end-of-semester projects and papers.
An added bonus: I don’t feel as stressed as I usually do. I don’t know if this is because I’m spending less time browsing the internet, therefore using my time to get things done and then relax, or if it’s because there’s some kind of stress associated with browsing profiles and message boards.

We all have that one passive-aggressive friend who uses their statuses to convey their frustration with the people in their lives. Am I the only one who always wonder if they’re talking about me? That kind of stuff stresses me out a little, even though it shouldn’t. Since starting this experiment, I can now file that kind of worry under the “I’ve stopped caring” category.

I feel good, except for feeling a bit like I’m keeping a secret from people. But then again, if there’s someone out there missing my oh-so-compelling tweets and status changes, I feel it’s my responsibility to invite them to try this “off the grid” experiment as well.

I fell off the wagon a little bit earlier today in what I’m going to call a stupid mistake. Going into this, I resolved to stay off message boards and forums of any kind because I think they clearly fit within the tenets of social networking. That being said, I have continued to visit Fark.com for the strange news and hilarious headlines while staying off the forums. Even if I’m not actively posting anything, I think lurking is as much a part of social networking as anything else.

There was a story I desperately wanted to read and thought the information was so vital to my life, I had to click the source link. The link wasn’t working. Often what happens when a link gets posted on Fark from a small Web site, the huge influx in click overloads the server and crashes the site. Inevitably though, some Farker copies and pastes the story into the associated forum. Naturally, I found this link to be dead and clicked immediately into the forum.

Off the wagon I fell.

Like most people nowadays, I encountered a problem on the internet and reached out to other people on the internet to help me. It’s such a common practice, Yahoo! Answers — a site that allows users to pose questions to other users in hopes of getting valid replies — has thrived on the model.

This all brings me back to my post for Day 4: Social networking is unavoidable. Even today’s in-class presentations in my COM475 class revolved around using Facebook and Twitter to communicate messages to an audience and target a specific demographic. It’s everywhere.

But let me be your inspiration to step away from the keyboard. You can do it. Besides, the weather is about to get gorgeous. If all else fails, get outside, take some pictures of your friends sporting sexy sunglasses and make a new Facebook album. At least you can say you tried.

(On a side note, I’ve appreciated the positive comments. But now I’m asking for input: Is YouTube.com a social networking site? Am I banned from it for the remainder of the week?)

I’m becoming less willing to take the blame for my social networking obsession as I find other ways to bide my time. If social networking Web sites were in some kind of race, Twitter.com and Facebook would be neck and neck, the world would be cheering them on and the media would be all over it.

It seems every time I turn on the television, some newscaster is asking me to tell them my thoughts via Twitter and become a fan of their network’s Facebook page. Just like the sites themselves, it’s incredibly distracting and really annoying. It was sick to watch Larry King’s interview with Candy Spelling earlier this week, a conversation that ended with an exchange that went something like, “If you Twitter me, I’ll Twitter you.” Gross.

The problem with trying to avoid social networking is simply this: You can’t. Let me explain.

Since quitting, I have spent less time in front of the computer. It’s been good and, like I mentioned in my last post, it’s been great realizing that I do, in fact, have time to read books that aren’t a class requirement. I just have to make the time. Prioritize. Who could’ve guessed?

If I didn’t make it clear before, both my jobs require me to be in front of computer. But in trying to stay “off the grid” of social networking, I’ve been channeling my downtime into other outlets, like shopping. I haven’t purchased anything yet, but there are purchases I’ve been meaning to make — like a new cell phone, possibly a smart phone of some sort — that I can now say I’ve thoroughly researched out of boredom. Here’s the problem.

So many Web sites have crossed the line between retail and social networking, it’s hard to tell if I’m wasting money or wasting time. Amazon.com, for example, is built around knowing the customer and what the customer likes and will buy. They use algorithms instead of photo album stalking, but Amazon probably knows you better than most of your closest friends. Amazon would never give you a Fall Out Boy CD for your birthday when you already mentioned you wanted the Led Zeppelin live concert DVD box set. Customers can make wish lists and have their own page which is similar to a Facebook profile. Review a product with a user name that is the same as what appears on your credit card and you get a “Real Name” badge to appear with your review. Review a lot of stuff and you can be a “Top 1000 Reviewer”. It’s flare, like a Facebook bumper sticker.

It’s social networking and we haven’t even realized it. At least, I hadn’t realized it until now. And sadly, I’ve been neck deep in this stuff for quite some time, it seems.

I’m making progress in leaving this all behind — not forever and probably never completely, but the longer I spend away from my profiles and my internet friends, the more I recognize how little it all matters.

But, like any other recovering addict, I’ve been tempted to log on many a time in the last few days. Today, The New York Times enticed me with two of my favorite things in life: recipes and Twitter. I love cooking and I love tweeting and this almost threw me off the wagon.

Recipes in 140 characters or less? I was forced to step away from the keyboard lest my social networking sobriety be compromised.

“Next time you have a thought, just let it go.”

I’m by no means a fan of Comedy Central’s band of redneck comedians, but I recently caught a special with Ron White, in which he jokes about saying that to an ignorant friend who always manages to stick his foot in his mouth.

As I stood in my kitchen and heard him mutter this from my living room TV, it struck me as the most appropriate philosophy to apply to this disconnected social experiment: Next time I have a thought, I’m going to let it go.

Walking to class, I thought about how much I would like to see some designer’s collection strut down the runway to the tune of The White Stripes’ Little Cream Soda. I got over it.

I came across a great news story I felt compelled to share with my roommate on Facebook.com. I clicked on to the next.

In other words, I’m slowly getting over this need to constantly, instantaneously relay every piece of information and every thought I find amusing to the rest of the world. Why, I’ve been asking myself, would they care anyway?

Second only to White’s words of wisdom, the phrase, “Why would anyone care about that?” also has been somewhat of a mantra for the past few days. I’ve realized most people don’t care about most of what I say or find interesting or funny. Shocking, right?

It has become almost second nature for our generation to share every detail of our lives with those around us in public ways, like posting an update on Facebook or some sort of personal blog site. I once read an article that blamed this phenomenon on our parents’ obsession with videotaping all those momentous occasions — birthdays, school plays, Christmas mornings spent opening gifts — and saving the tapes to later look back at as fond memories. This article (which I cannot find after lots of Googling, otherwise I’d love to share it here) also said our generation has a unique desire to publicly preserve ourselves unlike any generation before us, otherwise we feel as if we don’t exist.

Is it a little far-fetched? Probably. “I Facebook, therefore I am,” is not a mantra that has crept into my mind this week and I pretty much feel like I exist as much as I did last week. But there’s this nagging voice that keeps telling me people are wondering about what I’m doing.

It’s incredibly narcissistic and it kind of makes me think, “Who, exactly do you think you are? Are your boring thoughts and photos and daily web-browsings that enthralling?”

Simply put, no, they are not.

It still hurts a little to open up a browser and not check Facebook or type some random thought into that welcoming little box on Twitter that says, “What are you doing?”

But the less I do it, the less I think about doing it. And the less I do it, the more I accomplish as a result. Work goes smoother, there are fewer excuses and distractions to keep me from doing my homework and, honestly, I had time to start reading a new, non-school-related book last night.

I read a book for pleasure for the first time in probably a good two years. It was amazing. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it and how lame it is to say I don’t have time to read outside of school. Eliminating a few minutes of social networking here and there from my daily routine gave me time.

It feels like a new, less-connected day is dawning.

And I don’t care what anyone’s statuses have to say about it.

Hello, my name is Whitney and I’m a social networking addict.

I’ve been known to update my Facebook.com photo albums instead of doing homework. I send my textual thoughts to Twitter during boring lectures. I consume blogs with such a voracious appetite second only to my consumption of caffeine.

I’m an addict and I’m coming clean. This week is my rehab and it couldn’t be coming at a better time.

It’s crunch time, as I’m sure you’re well aware. Term papers, class projects and finals are breathing down my neck and if ever there was a time I needed to focus, this would be it. My schedule is full and there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to devote 15 minutes here and half an hour there to meticulously checking in on my friends and family, especially those whom I see on a daily basis.

Really, when I think about the obsession I have with social networking (one which I’m sure many of our readers share), it’s stupid. A couple weeks ago, the Features desk podcasted about Twitter and I quickly realized what an internet nerd I had become. I was sitting in a room full of my peers, talking about a micro-blogging site of which most of us were members and thinking of how I couldn’t wait to tinyurl the podcast link into a tweet later on that evening.

Sadder yet: The bulk of the people I follow were sitting in that room with me, talking about @’s and the courtesy behind re-tweeting (RT, if you’re unaware).
It’s absolutely unnecessary how much I feel the need to check-up on people throughout the day, especially when our updates include things as mundane as “At Espresso Royale, studying for an exam. Grrrr!”

This is the challenge:

• No Facebook or Twitter, and this includes text updates.
• No blogs, other than this one, of course. Celebrity gossip and LOLs are not that important.
• No forums for anything, especially news. I lurk and never post, but reading the dumb posts of other people somehow intrigues me for hours.
• E-mail, as I need it to succeed in class and at work, is allowed. However, I’ve turned off the chat function on my GMail account because I’m sure it toes some sort of line.

I won’t lie and say this is easy. Today was my first day off the grid and it was a painful success. Both my jobs require me to be in front of computers and the urge to open tab after tab in Firefox and log onto every networking site known to man was a compelling one. But I resisted, all the while wondering what was happening on “the internets.”

But here are the bonuses: I was much more productive at both jobs as I wasn’t bouncing back and forth between work and distraction. I felt more focused and even more motivated. There were a few very Tweet-able moments in my day and, OMG, I wanted to tell the world so badly. But I overcame. I moved on. I made mental notes.

Maybe by week’s end I’ll be one of those people who carries a Moleskine and carefully considers the world instead of instantaneously uploading it to the web.

Yesterday, my team placed second in the volleyball tournament.

After putting so much hard work and effort into something, it’s really rewarding to actually see the results.

The first game was a little rough, though. We were still warming up and trying to find each players’ role in the match.

Yet we kept it together and went with the flow, playing defense and coming out with a win.

The second game we played more like a team, calling the ball and really nailing our serves.

Just before the final round, we were watching other teams’ strategies, observing whom we may play next.

The last game we were simply outplayed. They had more volleys than we did; they deserved first place.

Nonetheless, at the end of the day we were proud of ourselves for working together and coming home with a second place trophy.

As an added bonus, it was 72 degrees outside and each of us got a little color.

After the tournament I went home and relaxed on the couch, realizing my official week of working out. I didn’t have to incorporate exercise into my schedule anymore if I didn’t feel like it, or have the time.

But I’ve decided I’m going to work out at least three or four times a week from here on out. It’ll probably end up being on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday/Saturday.

My favorite work out was swimming laps at IM West or doing yoga. Yoga de-stressed me at the end of the week, doing a much better job than venting to a roommate. Swimming felt really relaxing as well, like you were having fun and getting exercise at the same time.

Other than those two routines, I think I’m going to keep up on the elliptical, doing a rigorous cardio work out at least once a week.

All I know is I’m going to keep it fresh and new every day, thinking of something different to prevent me from getting bored.

I simply needed the motivation to get “back into the swing of things” and make time to keep myself healthy.

Everyone can find 20 minutes in their day to do a quick work out routine. It’s possible, even with a hectic schedule. I swear.

One pattern arose over the week was not related to working out.

Well, maybe it was but it still was something I didn’t think about very often.

I found myself eating healthier. I would find myself thinking about how many calories were in each item, slowly realizing I only burned 250 calories in one workout, for instance.

After exercising, I felt so good about myself that I didn’t want to mess that up by putting sugar and fat into my body.

I would order salads for dinner instead of sandwiches or the occasional burger. I didn’t want to give into sugary sweet temptations. I found myself snacking on more fruit (bananas have become a staple).

It’s not that I’m overweight, though. It’s more about giving my body the nutrients and attention it needs and deserves.

I believe that being healthy is a blend physical fitness and the food you put into your body.

I guess this week turned into more than just working out for seven days straight.

It has turned into helping me maintain a healthy lifestyle and keeping the right habits in line as I grow older.