Time Management Snafu Causes 8-Month Hiatus

I chose this title for its frankness and for its click-bait quality. Most readers would have expected the word “issues” after “time management,” but I wrote “snafu!” What a well-thought-out swerve…

Anyway, this title is probably not something a human resources person wants to see after asking you the interview question, “How do you manage your time to deal with conflicting deadlines?”

However, I’ve since resolved the issues by finishing the most challenging tasks first so that I can sleep-walk through some of the easier duties. Namely, finding a steady line of work that doesn’t require a long commute! Blogging took a backseat.

Of course, I would not reference “sleep walking” into any task if part of a job interview response, but my point is that most mental and emotional resources should be spent on the most important goals. (These should be the most challenging, but not always.)

Nonetheless, I’ve noticed the older I get, the more difficult time management becomes. And I haven’t even had my first full-time job yet, just a few part-time jobs, some of which are only seasonal!

So, how can anyone who’s only responsible for feeding and housing himself — and doesn’t watch TV, play video games, or aimlessly web surf — spend so much time and accomplish so little?

My primary problem is that I’m too ambitious in scope and have to switch off among projects to finish one while leaving the others to collect dust while I take notes on life experiences; get enough sleep to be alert and quick for work; and of course, actually perform paid work outside the home.

It is therefore clear that I’m not “wasting time” in the traditional sense of “slacker who sits around mentally idle.” Rather, I’ve been laying the groundwork for big things in 2016. To quote Frank Sinatra, “The best is yet to come,” but it requires much planning and proper implementation.

For example, on December 11, 2015, I launched the world’s first petition calling for occupational outcomes of the prior year’s cohort of program graduates (not just a few hand-picked “superstars”) to be announced publicly prior to disbursement of Title IV funds (financial aid) to any particular university.

A lengthier article on the petition is forthcoming — but for now, I’m finishing certain confidential commitments and will post once more before year’s end. Just remember: The sooner you prioritize full-time work, even the lower-waged jobs from any field that won’t reasonably kill or maim you (although some brave souls thrust themselves into such dangerous jobs), the sooner you can have a steady income schedule and thereby be free of the difficulty of how to monetize your spare time.

That is, you won’t have much more free time other than to sleep, but you’ll end up wasting less money — such as by avoiding the grave error of “sheltering in academia” — and be in an urgent frame of mind that forces you to prioritize, as opposed to attempting everything and end up failing miserably at time management.

To quote and rebut the Masser & Jennings song made famous by Whitney Houston, “Didn’t we almost have it all?!?” No. Why not?

You and the others merely focused upon a subset among the infinite domain of possibilities. To “almost have it all” implies approaching the real limit of these possibilities, which in reality not even the best mortal manager of time can do! It would take eons to “almost have it all!”

Well, I’m signing off before I take more tours into tangents. A lot of this is pure SEO bait, anyway. Why search engine optimization? To point to my petition! (One link per page is enough, however, lest a search penalty be applied.)