Planning: A Technique to be more Productive

I’m still really new to my MacBook Pro, and I’ve only recently discovered the program known as iCal. As a university student, I’ve now formatted iCal so that my classes are set as recurring events in the work calendar.

I never really knew what to do with iCal before because I never had a need for it — I never planned my days because they were so rigid; school would be from 8AM-3PM, I’d do homework until around 6PM, and then do whatever until 8PM, when I’d eat dinner. And then, I’d do whatever.

But I’ve realized that those days are long gone, and aren’t coming back anytime soon (oh sweet summer, why won’t you arrive sooner?). And if I were to gain an edge over other students, and survive this semester of university, I would have to step up my game. Everyone’s focused, and everyone’s determined to be the best. How could I separate myself from the rest of the pack?

I decided firstly to make the most use of my time. I decided that I’d focus on whatever I was doing at the time, so I could work hard and produce good work for a series of days (getting into the flow of work), and then enjoy my time the rest of the days. How would I go about doing this?

Planning, friends. Planning.

I’ve decided to make it a habit before I go to sleep to open iCal and figure out what I would do with my day. I usually have a morning lecture (for about an hour or two), then a long break and an afternoon lecture. This can be seen as a beautiful or a disgusting thing; if I didn’t use the time wisely, then my day would end late and I’d have to do homework. If I did manage to use this time well, then I would be able to do some work, reinforce my learning, and possibly even kill the workload so I wouldn’t have to do it after my afternoon lecture.

Sweet.

What do I do with the spare time?

There are a ton of extracurriculars that I hope to be a part of at this university. Not to mention that CutEdge.org could use more updates and more content. I usually enjoy writing articles, because I find that it’s good practise and Lord knows I could use it. But my whole goal is still to be more productive — not to enjoy my time (well, there are times for that — they’re called weekends), but to kill everything so that I can recreate hard on weekends and focus on schoolwork on weekdays.

Here’s an article that I ran into today to inspire me:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203803904574429151858232582.html?mod=rss_careers

Hope I was of some help. I realize that this is taking off in an untraditional CutEdge.org direction, but I do hope to explore not only technologies, but also techniques that help people. And not just useless gadgets that people get sick of so very quickly.