Though I am transferring to NYU and will be moving to New York City this summer, I am still taking my public administration courses at UCCS and finishing the semester pretty soon. Even with my reduced work hours at the new part time job, I've done far too much procrastinating and have allowed myself to get behind in some reading and projects for my classes. I'm currently trying to remedy that and a big part of that is the course work for my Management Development class. I attended three weekend class sessions at the beginning of the semester but I have until mid May to finish all the assigned work. The work includes a Stress-Reduction Exercise and what's called a 'Quadrant 2' Time Management Exercise. The purpose of the stress reduction exercise is to identify five things I'm willing to do in order to reduce stress in my life and find a way to measure them over the course of a few weeks. The purpose of the time management exercise is to plan out my life over the course of about a month and focus on 'quadrant 2' activities, which Stephen Covey identifies as important but not urgent. I'm working on both of those right now and I'm sort of mixing them together. I'm planning out this week and working on prioritizing and getting the most important tasks done first and I've also made a list of things that I will be doing from today until next Sunday that are aimed at reducing my stress levels. Here's what I will be focusing on for this week:
1. No internet time wasters (Facebook, messageboards or forums, etc.). My time on the computer will be limited to responding to important emails, documenting my progress on these projects, typing other papers or researching for school, and maybe a little bit of news browsing.
2. No fast food, no soda, no alcohol. Also will be watching my calories, cutting back on foods with high fat intake, and eating smaller portions.
3. I'm going to wake up 20-30 minutes earlier each morning to start my day with some light exercise (pullups, pushups or crunches) and to take my dog Jack for a walk, before I go to work.
4. I will go the gym for a minimum of an hour each day (I've been doing this pretty regularly as of late but I want to make sure I continue and also focus on getting more out of my workouts). I am trying to lose weight and continue to get in better physical shape.
5. A minimum of 2 hours of reading each afternoon/evening for school. If I have more time to read books not required for my classes, great. If not, what's important is that I stay caught up on my school reading.
6. One French lesson per day. Hanna and I started the French language Rosetta Stone program this week and I want to make sure I'm doing lessons daily. A lot of the places I'd like to work when I finish my graduate studies will be much more easily accessible if I know a second language, such as French or Spanish. We decided on French. The lessons are about 30-40 minutes each so if I'm managing my time effectively, there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to keep up with this.
These exercises or attempts at increasing my time effectiveness/stress reduction (and potential for getting an A) are also tied into another project I'm working on for my Organization Management class called a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal). My BHAG is focused on personal fitness, losing weight, maintaining a healthier diet and getting back into basketball shape. I won't go into too much detail right now but I have a few goals outlined that I will be focusing on. Working on these activities, as well as other papers and projects for my classes, will require a lot of focus, concentration, discipline and effective time usage. I'm going to record my progress, do my best to avoid excuses and see how things go. Basically I'll be doing school work while doing a lot of things to better myself.
Writing on my blog, while often an activity that helps me reduce stress, could be considered an internet time waster for the purposes of these projects, so I'll cut this one off before I get too far off track. :) More to come soon, thanks for reading.
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