Scheduling That Works For Me

Last semester I quietly began testing a new personal scheduling system that I hoped would help me prioritize my life on a weekly and daily basis. After a full semester of tweaking this system, and several weeks into the new semester, I have concluded that while not perfect for all lives and situations, I feel as if I'm doing much better off with it - and I'm going to share a little bit of my methodology now.

At the outer-most level, I plan in months and weeks using a calendar. In my case, I use Google Calendar, which provides several benefits to me: it's accessible online, it has a clean, easy-to-use interface, and it integrates with calendar standards, such as iCal and CSV, in order for me to export it to Outlook on my base computer at home, which will come into play later.

Slightly below that level of planning, I break my months and weeks into events. Work, class, and anything that I plan (ie, a movie or dinner out) become events, and land on my calendar. This is my "base schedule" so to speak, which I do all my other planning off of. I export my Google Calendar to Outlook, where it is synced with my PDA, which I use for planning on the road.

Depending on how heavy my overall school and work load is on any particular given week, I may schedule special events into my week that take into account homework or project load. School first.

Now for the nitty-gritty details. Every morning, I look over my task list and calendar, and come up with a plan for just that day. How much time do I have free thus far? How much time should I devote to homework? Programming? Writing? Reading? Socializing? Gaming? I then plot out my day with logical time chunks; an example would be something like, "it's now 2:00pm, and I'll finish my English 413 homework by 3:30, then do a half-hour of reading for CS 429."

By breaking my day into smaller task and setting small, incremental goals, I can throw everything else aside, devote the necessary time to myself, and... get shit done! Thus far, it has worked exceptionally well: believe it or not, I can stick to these mini-goals very well, and I've been more productive for it. While initially getting used to a calendar- and hour-based routine might seem mundane or difficult, it has worked out well so far.

Of course, I don't always fill up my entire day: I do leave some free time (usually two hours a day) to spend time doing anything - gaming, eating, cleaning, or just relaxing.

I've run into a few problems with this methodology on occasion. The biggest problem is unplanned events. I frequently find myself out and about longer than expected, or in a situation or place that does not have all the resourced I need for a particular planned task. I have managed better this semester thanks to my Eee PC, which affords me ready access to a computer and generally the Internet (Google Calendar!) anywhere I go. Also, the one thing that I don't schedule is my relationship: how contrived would that be!? So my biggest challenge is to make sure that my time spent with Colleen doesn't interfere with my planned tasks, which it minimally does, other than on the occasion when I end up staying in BG when I really should take time at home to get stuff done.

But all in all, my system works for me. An overview: I use a calendar to plan my months/weeks, and then write a mini-schedule every morning of how my day should go in order to allow time for all my school-related work to get completed. I stick to this ideal very well, and it has been paying off in spades for me this semester. It sure seems like a good way to go out of college: all planned and prepped for the rest of my life.

B3 out.