Posts Tagged ‘multi-tasking’

Pitfalls of Chasing the Clock

Friday, March 8th, 2024

The countdown is never-ending, the countdown for the next test, for the next paper, for finals. During my practice, the timer does not stop. It consumes my efforts to have the fastest time and be the most efficient and skilled on and off the water. As busy college students, we are all familiar with the feeling of searching for time. What I’ve learned, and still am learning, is the importance of prioritizing, taking a step back, and recognizing what I want and need to accomplish and how much I have already done. 

There are moments during the school year when I’ve felt stuck in an endless cycle of completing a task and beginning a new one. Overwhelmed and unsure of where to start, focusing and using precious time effectively becomes difficult. Everyone’s way of coping and time management strategies varies, but for me, I found breaking down my work into smaller tasks and dedicating blocks of time to work on these more straightforward assignments is the best way to feel accomplished at the end of a busy day and set up to do it all over again in the morning.

Latin homework translations on the Amtrak

This strategy primarily works when I’m in season, and my weekends typically spent studying or writing essays are taken up by races. Instead of struggling to make up for the lost time, I find myself reading my assigned texts while working out for extra steady-state minutes or listening to news podcasts while walking to class. Multi-tasking has become a convenient way to finish simple tasks, and when I have larger chunks of time in my schedule, I can dedicate those to completing more daunting assignments such as drafting my close-reading analysis paper or studying for my Latin exam. Despite these time constraints, I always know I can meet any task and deadline and not crack under time pressure. I always remind myself to be kind to my needs and mind, knowing that my essays, projects, and homework assignments were completed with my best foot forward. 

Reading a Shakespeare play outside

Creating time with these means proves it’s not about going through the motions but setting intentions and feeling confident in the process. There will be days when you trip and fall, perhaps working too hard on one assignment and dedicating no time to studying for an upcoming exam, but there will also be days when you find your stride in your productivity, seizing rather than spending time in ways that are most beneficial to you. 

There is only so much time students have in a day. While it may be frustrating, it is crucial to remember that there will always be another day, another opportunity to begin again and seize the day with intention. By breaking down challenging tasks, there will always be a way to make time for yourself and truly enjoy college life.


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By Lecia Sun

Lecia is a student at Tufts University studying Classics and World Literature. When she is not reading, she can be found attempting the New York Times Games, trying out a new creative hobby, and dreaming about her next great bake. 


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Chambers of Solitude: the October Schlump

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

Big Apple

New York City: you don't have to see all of it in a month

About a month into the fall semester, a phenomenon occurs that I refer to as the October Schlump. It’s easy to recognize: first-year students, (who every night up till then have turned Washington Square into a giant social playground,) suddenly disappear. For a few weeks they are conspicuously absent, and then slowly, as Halloween approaches, they begin to tentatively reemerge from their dorms. What happened?

I know, because I went through it. For students new to this amazing city, that first month is like a dream. So many wonderful things to see and do that were never available before; new friends to make, new places to go, new things to discover. But it really feels like a dream: there’s a constant sense that this is illusory, that at any moment you will wake up and this opportunity you worked so hard for will dissolve around you. When a new friend invites you to go to this party at their friend’s place in Brooklyn, you think, Brooklyn! When else will I get to see Brooklyn?! When you read about a new exhibit at the MoMA, you think, the MoMA! When else will I be able to visit the MoMA?! When you pass a new Mexican restaurant in the Village offering a two-for-one Margarita special, you think . . .  well, you get the idea.

This lifestyle is, of course, impossible to maintain. About a month in, you wake up one day, maybe around 5 PM, and think, what day is it? You realize that you slept through an entire day of classes. See, you meant to just take a short nap – it was 3 AM, you’d just gotten back from a party at a friend’s – Happy Wednesday! – and you realized you didn’t have any clean clothes, so what a perfect time to do laundry! You threw a load in the washer, and then came back up to finish that essay on Socrates – that’s what New York’s about, multitasking! – and about two pages in thought, I’ll just take a quick nap – an hour or two, tops. After all, you haven’t slept in two days, so it’s about time to give the body a little refresher. Now here you are, essay not finished, classes missed, your load of laundry having been removed from the washer and scattered aimlessly all over the laundry room floor by some jerk. And even after sleeping twelve hours, you still feel tired. Or not tired, more than tired – exhausted. Your resources have been depleted; nothing in you wants to get out of bed, go anywhere, do anything. The momentum is gone.

This is the October Schlump. Although skipping meals and missing sleep are major contributing factors, the Schlump is not a disease, at least not physically. It’s the mental state that settles in when you realize that you barely have any idea what you did in the past month. You were in constant motion, you went and saw and did a million amazing things, but you can barely remember any of them. Some of them you liked, some of them you didn’t, but which were which?

So, for about a week, you don’t go out. You stay inside, do homework, get lots of sleep, eat right, and figure out what to do next. In that time, you realize that New York City isn’t going anywhere. It won’t disappear under your feet one day; it will be there the next day when you wake up, and the day after that, and the day after that. You will have at least four years, at most the rest of your life, to explore. So after that week, when friends call you up and invite you to this or that, you can say no, not tonight, rain-check. You don’t even need to give a reason. You can (in fact, you must) spend a night in now and then. And you must do is reflect. You are swimming in a sea of new experiences, new stimuli, new ideas, and some are good for you and some are not. You can have all these experiences but if you never stop to reflect on what they mean, they are – literally – meaningless.

As anyone who’s lived in a dorm can attest, dorms can be a lot of fun, but they aren’t really the best places for quiet reflection. After my October Schlump, I began to seek out places I could go to be by myself, to think and ponder, to reflect and debate. I can’t give you the answers to the big questions of life that all college students confront during those four years – I don’t have them. But I can share with you come places I think will provide the stillness, the solitude, within the bustling metropolis that we call home, to find some of these answers. And I will call them Chambers of Solitude. More to come.

And in the meantime, if you need to a moment of calm and some advice on chill-axing, (sorry, I won’t use that word again,) go here.

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Tips for Choosing Your Classes

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

With the freedom and independence that come along with the college experience, it’s easy to forget that we are here primarily to study and learn. Classes are an important part of college life and, thus, it is important to give a lot of thought into what you want to study each semester. That being said, here are a few things you should keep in mind when choosing your classes:

First, I would advise you to familiarize yourself with the requirements of your school’s core curriculum. The core curriculum is a set of mandatory courses that are specifically designed to provide students with a well-rounded education. Thus, universities and colleges mandate that their students take classes in a broad range of academic disciplines, such as mathematics, biological and physical sciences, the humanities, social sciences, and foreign languages. Depending on your school and your major, the core can take up to two years to complete – gasp! – so it’s best to know ahead of time what you have to take.

Second, use the core curriculum to your advantage! Most colleges and universities offer a number of different courses that can be taken to fulfill a requirement in the core curriculum. Thus, if you already know what you want to major in, look to see if there are any classes that can also count for your major. By doing so, you can: (1) Get a head start in completing your major, (2) Free up some time in your junior and senior years for fun classes or internships, or (3) Graduate a semester early. In addition, if you have not yet declared a major, the core curriculum is the perfect opportunity for you to experiment so that you can find out what fields of study interest you and which do not. You never know what you like until you try so do not be afraid to go out on a limb – that’s part of what college is all about!

Third, do a little background check on the professors who are supposed to be teaching the classes you are interested in. The website Rate My Professors is an excellent source for figuring out how a specific professor operates and what you can expect from taking his or her class. It is important to remember, however, that the reviews on this website are are the opinions of former students, and should be taken with a grain of salt. But, in my own personal experience, the ratings have been extremely accurate in depicting a given professor.

And finally, take the times of the classes into consideration. Although everyone has different preferences, I would advise you to schedule your classes when you are the most functional and active. In addition, I would recommend designating either a specific time frame in each day (i.e. 11:30-3:30, 8:30-11:30, etc.) or specific days of the week for your classes. I have found that it is a lot easier to do other things, such as sports, jobs, internships, and volunteer work, when your classes are arranged in a blocs of times or days.

-Christina Brower

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Commuter Blues: How to Make the Most of Your Daily Ride

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

For some students, the optimal college dorming experience is not a feasible financial option and the only choice available to them is to make a daily commute to campus. Although it is oftentimes a long, tiresome affair – Believe me I know!  I commuted almost two hours a day from Queens to the Bronx for over three years! – there are some things you can do to make the most of the time that you spend stuck in the car or on the train. That way when you do finally make it to your destination, you will have less work to do and will have more of a chance to relax after a long day of commuting and learning.

If you are taking public transportation to get to school, then your commute is probably the best time to get all of that assigned reading out of the way. So before you bolt out the door in the morning, check to see what needs to be read for your classes and try to devote your commute to completing that task. It’s a relatively easy way to get things done. Honestly, there is not much you can do on a train or a bus, so remembering to grab those books or that e-reader (i.e. Kindle, Nook, iPad) in the morning will also save you from countless hours of commuter boredom. And, on the plus side, when you finally get home, you will have less to do and can maybe even squeeze in a little relaxation time before you have to start the cycle all over again.

Even if you drive a car to school, there are still ways that you can get some of your homework done before you pull into your driveway. Although you can’t actually read a book while driving, you can listen to one. So my advice would be to see if you can find the audio book versions of those novels for English class, and listen your way to some free time.

-Christina Brower

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