Last night was another great discussion. Thanks to everyone who made it out.
We will be having out third meeting in two weeks.
The control philosophy has you decide in advance how to spend your hours. It rejects the default approach of allowing your days to unfold in a chaotic and inefficient manner. (Cal Newport)
This week we discussed:
- Auto pilot- assign every regular occurring task to a specific day of the week. This should allow you to get those things done with ease and focus more time of the bigger things.
- Time blocking- There are two good reasons why time blocking works so well. First, by assigning times to tasks, you're forced to face the reality of how much work is on your plate. This prevents stressful pile-ups and all-nighters. (Cal Newport)
- Is a too specific schedule hard to stick to? For some people it is. Personalize your schedule.
- When you are working it's working time, not facebook or texting time. Some people find it helpful to turn off their phones, shut down their WiFi and make sure they focus only on the task at hand. Also, if you want to have time in your day to facebook schedule in a break and know you are going to facebook then, however we discussed how distracting and time consuming the internet can be. For some staying off the internet til all homework is done is a better idea.
- Assigning work to times reduces the urge to procrastinate. You are no longer deciding whether or not to work during a given period; the decision is already made.
- Don't give yourself too much time or you will take all the time when it could have gotten done in a reasonable amount of time.
- Breaking up tasks. If something is intimidating put it on the schedule a few times so you can break it up into smaller chunks and avoid getting run down by the same assignment.
- One tip was to use the time you start to wander in class as productive time. Start working on the assignment instead of daydreaming.
Control was a good way for us to use to know how to use our planners some of us went out and purchased after the first meeting. We look forward to seeing how this has improved everyones schedules in two weeks.
