Time Management

When I write something on this blog, it tends to be an answer to some question that gets repeatedly asked of me – either because I demand I answer it, or because others question me. Of the non-trivial questions I get asked, probably one of the most common ones I get is “how do you manage to do all of it?” or “how do you sleep?” The answer to the latter question is quite simple, really: I sleep quite well.

I seemed to have gotten at least a bit of a reputation for doing super-human amounts of work.

Blackboard says I do six subjects this semester, which is double the minimum for a student at the University of Queensland requires to be considered full time, and 150% of what most students actually take. In fact, I unofficially do a bit more than that, because there are a couple more maths courses I go to because the mathematics is directly related to a research project I am doing – one is a third year course, which takes some effort to understand because I am unfamiliar with the prerequisite course, and another is from a totally different branch of mathematics to the one I am used to. Now, that research project is essentially what one of those courses is, but it seems to me to be substantially more time consuming than the other courses. I find that deriving some results (which, at this point, are already known) to be quite exciting, actually, and so I am happy to put in the time and effort.

I am involved in several ministries. I attend the majority of Frassati Australia events, of Marist Youth events and make attempts to go to others, whenever possible (I went to Ignite Live, for instance, every time except the first that it was on, last year, but now that it's major event is up in Banyo, it is just too far). I am involved with the St Stephen's Young Adults Ministry, I am secretary of the J.H. Newman Catholic Society at UQ, and I help out every week at a soup kitchen run by the Missionaries of Charity each Saturday.

I read fair bit. I read almost entirely non-fiction books, ones that average about 350 pages and usually not at a beginner level – and I generally finish about a book a week, sometimes it takes me two if I am being slack. Or, when I have one of the more restful weeks, I will often finish two in a week – during my summer semester earlier this year, when I was still told I was doing far too many subjects, I finished eleven books in a month (although the average book length for January was probably more like 200 pages, maybe even just 150, and they were fairly easy reads). That is all completely independent from the hefty reading amounts required by second year philosophy courses, the non-negligible amount required by my physics courses, and the quite large amount needed for my research project (although thankfully, that stage has mostly past – whilst it took me some gruelling three weeks, I can essentially claim to have taught myself the basics quantum mechanics, including ventures into the more complicated, but beautiful, area of quantum field theory. I am clearly no expert, though.)

I cite these things, not to make myself look good (for a numerous group, being a nerd, even a very social one like myself, is still a bad thing, I suppose), but to try and indicate why it is people think I must have a time-turner, some magical device which allows me to make more time in my day. Evidently I do not, and so, they ask, where does the time come from? How is that possible with only 24 hours a day? Aha! Maybe I am overworked and sleep deprived!

I also sleep and rest a lot. In the past week, I deviated from the standard of 8-9 hours a night a couple of times – there was a six-hour night and a seven-hour night – but I largely kept to it. I also completed Metal Gear Solid 4, completely without rushing, and savouring several of the fun parts of the game more slowly, so I must have played PS3 for a substantial amount of time. I get distracted a lot on the computer, reading this and that, watching a couple of educational-but-not-that-important videos, chatting to people for hours over Facebook chat. Many a night has disappeared with good conversations and great friends online! Part of that is because I have friends in European timezones, but to a large extent, it is friends I see frequently who I chat with.

And with that last point of the triangle – the triangle of social life, study or sleep – I have surely done the impossible, right? Not at all. I am unlikely to have done something impossible without some serious discipline, and I am a very undisciplined person. I suppose I do miss out on two important parts of living, exercising and earning money, but at least the former could be worked into my schedule if I was more disciplined.

I do not need magic or serious discipline to do what I do for a fairly obvious but insightful reason: that's what my life is like. I do not mean to say that, the fact that I do actually live life with those time commitments is conclusive evidence that I somehow manage to do it, that would be circular. I mean to say the much simpler point, that I am capable of living this way because when I live my life that way habitually, or in some sense “naturally.”¹

I did not realise this was what I did until Thursday, when a chap recommending a book after a talk I went to said “I know you all have busy lives, but Tim Chester has an answer for you: just work it into your daily lives.” That's exactly it! You don't have time to read? Work it into your daily life. You don't have time to sleep? Work it in to your daily life. You don't have time to go out with friends? Work it into your daily life.

I realise that there is a limit to all of this (else, I would have a job!), but the point is simple: if one tries to do a lot without incorporating it into one's daily structures, one will most likely fail. However, if one uses the existent structure, then time becomes more open: for instance, it is not a very large effort to volunteer at the soup kitchen each Saturday morning. Whilst others might think that getting back home at about 14:00, as I did today, is a horrendous chunk of the day missing, I am not a morning person. Mornings are practically spare time – there is not much I learn in the morning. So I do study later, and I have time in the morning.

Whilst I am on the bus, though, I can read a book. The bus-and-train trip to the Valley is an opportunity to read a dozen or so pages, and if one doubles that for the return trip, then it's almost thirty pages just from otherwise idle time. I know I sound like I am giving time management advice. I hope that is not the message people are receiving – my advice would be, become disciplined! If that fails, do as I do, and do things in otherwise empty spots. It's not tiring, it's refreshing, and just one practical consequence is, I have not been bored for several years!

1I put this in inverted commas because I used to be exceedingly lazy, and could not have imagined being this...”productive.”