The Time Diet

In Defense of Procrastination

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We’ve always been told that procrastination is something that should be avoided. Our teachers and parents always said things like “never put off till tomorrow what can be done today.” This is wise advice, however, sometimes a little bit of well-managed procrastination can do wonders for our stress levels.

I saw last week’s holiday weekend as a great chance to get ahead on my work. “Just think! A whole extra day to get caught up on all my class reading and homework!” On Saturday and Sunday I did so well, knocking tasks out one by one. The house was finally clean! My assigned reading was almost finished! When Monday evening rolled around, I still had a few things left on my “choose-to” list when I realized TBS was having a marathon of The Office. I love this show. Looking over my list, I realized that there was nothing on there that couldn’t wait until tomorrow. I had worked so hard all weekend so I put my computer away, curled up on the couch and watched about three hours of The Office and it was worth every minute.

The Time Diet is based on the philosophy that we choose how to spend every minute of every day. If you usually control your time well, it’s ok to give in to procrastination every once in a while, just like it’s ok for a healthy eater to splurge on a giant piece of chocolate cake sometimes. It’s all about having control. Procrastination is a bad thing when it becomes a way of life. Habitual procrastinators aren’t in control of their own time and rely on being up against a deadline to get their work done. Do not make putting off work a habit, but a little bit of well-controlled procrastination can be good for you once in a while. I think Michael Scott would agree with me.

Put Your Head Down and Start Grazing

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There were several moments this week when I just wanted to stop and scream, “How am I possibly going to get this all done?!?!” The reality of all of the deadlines for grad school is finally setting in and my students at work need the same amount of attention whether I have other things going on in life or not. It is tempting to just wallow in the pressures of all of these deadlines but that is such a waste of time and energy. Whenever I catch myself starting to stress out about all the work I need to do, I consult the tasks on my choose-to list and start tackling them.

Consider the following story:

“Two cows were faced with an immense pasture of grass to graze. The first cow stood in awe and said, “How in the world will I ever finish all this grass? There is surely far too much here for me.” The second cow said nothing, put her head down, and started grazing.”

Every moment we waste worrying about getting something done is one less moment we have to actually start getting things done. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to start grazing on some lesson plans.

We Are All Busy

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So, for the first time this school year, I overheard someone say, “Sorry, I’ve been too busy.” I will spare any more details than that to protect the innocent (or the guilty I suppose?) The “I’m too busy” line drives me crazy. It literally makes my skin crawl. We are all busy. We all have lives and we all have things we’d rather be doing than work. Sometimes, however, work needs to be done and it might mean that you have to give up watching American Idol one night to get it done.

This is coming out rather harshly. I don’t mean to suggest that we should never say “no” to anything and that having time to relax isn’t important. In fact, a big part of the Time Diet philosophy is scheduling in relaxing things, the equivalent of “desserts” in a regular diet. However, another important tenant of the Time Diet is that every single thing we do during the day is a choice. Rather than saying you’re “too busy” say that you’ve chosen to use your time doing other things. That may seem like just a difference of semantics, but it’s really a whole attitude shift.

Saying, “I’ve been too busy” is a line that simultaneously gives an excuse for not having something done and attempts to makes the speaker seem more important than the listener. After all, the busier you are, the more important you are, right? (blatant sarcasm) Saying, “I’ve chosen to use my time with other things” on the other hand shows that you recognize that only you are in control of your time. It’s also a lot easier to truthfully use that line when the “other things” you’re talking about are work or family related and not vegging out on the sofa.

School School

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Being both a teacher and a student can be a little confusing. I have to refer to being a teacher as “work school” and being a student as “school school” so people know which kind of “school” I’m talking about!

Well, “school school” started up this week at ASU. I’m so excited for this semester. The classes I’m taking are really interesting and I want to do well in them, not just for the grade, but because I really want to master this stuff! The problem is that this is probably going to be my toughest academic semester yet. Whew. Here we go again!

I think to manage the work load I’m going to need to add another Time Bucket to my list. Time Buckets are chunks of time in your schedule that you put different tasks in. For example, any homework I do goes in my evening “Homework Time Bucket.” Usually I come home from work and relax a little bit before dinnertime on the nights I don’t have class. This semester, I think I need to add another Homework Time Bucket here to put work in. If I take my laptop to work, and stay another 1-2 hours past my contracted time, I could get some extra homework time in and not feel so stressed in the later evening hours. The only problem is that I know how exhausted I usually am after a full day of teaching and I can’t wait to get home. We’ll see how this new plan works. It might have to also include an occasional coffee from Starbucks!