Still Trying to be “With It”
21 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
Glancing back at my older blog posts I realize I haven’t made a whole lot of progress in some of my complaints about time management. I still wish I could read more often, I still wish I was more up to date on current events, and I still just flat out want to know more about other things. HOWEVER I have taken a few steps that make me feel like I am ever so slightly closer to achieving my goals:
1. I graduated from college! While the education was great and all, it is so nice to have more spare time! Mind you I basically work 8 hours a day five days a week for my internship, so I have less physical time at home. That said, I have so much more mental time. I don’t have to spend my spare at home time catching up on sleep or studying or writing papers or doing homework assignments anymore. So step 1 of finding more time complete!
2. Twitter: when it first blew up I will admit I was definitely skeptical about it. Now that I’ve had more time to investigate it a little further, I’ve found ways to utilize it as a media and information machine. I still don’t really post a whole lot about myself and what I’m doing, because as far as I’m concerned that’s what Facebook it for where people I actually know read it. It has been awesome for keeping up to date on some of my favorite musical artists though, and I even use it for news blurbs and fashion tips!
3. Watching Comedy Central: I know this may seem a little strange as a way of furthering my knowledge of current events, but believe it or not its one of my main sources. I tend to find regular news programs boring, or not on at times that are convenient for me, so I’ve taken up watching “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” regularly. YES I am fully aware that these are satirical broadcasts meant for entertainment, but the topics they cover are real and current. For example, with my previous habits of news intake I wouldn’t have realized that the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” issue was up for being repealed! BUT when I heard about if on CC I looked into it more on my own and signed a petition as well as stayed up to date on it. ((Sidenote: SO glad it got repealed! But I won’t get into that here))
4. Reading: I still haven’t worked a whole lot on getting in more casual reading, but I’m slowly getting there. I have decided that I will start collecting books, and I am so excited about it. Though it will add to my collection of bought but unread books, haha. I’m currently working my way through “The City of Dreaming Books” by Walter Moers. I loved his “The 13 and 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear” so I decided to read another portion of the Zamonian saga. At the same time I also have started reading “The Divine Comedy”. Polar opposites almost, I know, but that way I can read based on my mood. The one thing in my reading world that I have managed to stay completely caught up on is my manga; I still have a few new volumes to get, though. I’ll be waiting until after the Crhistmas/birthday season is done for me. Just in case.
5. My final improvement as far as time management and staying up to date on things is the adjustment of keeping open several tabs on my web browser. In the past I mainly changed just he one tab around, maybe two for references. However now my normal MINIMUM is 3. I have a Facebook tab and a Twitter tab open at all times, both informing me of updates, and then usually at least one other tab open for browsing. The nature of “tweets” often leads to more tabs since any links posted open up in a new tab, so I’ll usually go through all the tweets I have to catch up on and open any tab along the way, sometimes mounting to massive numbers. I also like to have a reference tab or two open for a quick spell check or Wikipedia/Google look up.
I still have my vices however in time management. My biggest flaw is my continued obsession with online games, in particular those on Facebook. I’ve gotten better over the last few weeks and hope to keep it that way by eliminating a few games I don’t really play much. CURSE YOU NETFLIX, seems pretty self explanatory about what my situation there is. Another issue with time management isn’t so much a vice as it is added responsibility. Two big culprits are dish washing (alas we have no dishwasher) and cooking dinner. I LOVE cooking so it isn’t really that big of a deal. I’ve been trying all kinds of recipes, most ending well. I guess that comes with the territory of this “Real World” stuff people always talk about out of college. My most recent addition to time-takers is trying to start a workout regime, hopefully that goes well.
I hope to continue to expand my knowledge base, maybe by using that “StumbleUpon” button a little more often or maybe by just casual browsing and reading. I will also try to give myself more time for the joy of reading for fun with the collection of unread books I have amassed. Good luck fellow time crunchers!
