Time Management

There are many things in my life that I excell at. I'm a prodigious reader, an accomplished knitter, and a devoted student.

I am not good at time management. Duirng parts of my life, this wasn't so much of an issue. Now that I'm in graduate school, I am constantly fighting with myself over time management.

I am continuosly trying to find balance between a number of activities, including:

homework
knitting
desinging
web management
aikido
housework
cooking
exercise
sleep
socializing
jewelry making
photography
photo editing
grocery shopping

Currently, I consider myself to be "on top" of things if I manage to, inside of a week, get all of my school reading and homework completed, attend one aikido class, get a couple hours of knitting in, and wake up feeling rested at least one day a week. I know I could fit more in, too, which is the frustrating part.

When I was an undergraduate, I made a weekly schedule detailing what homework and activites would be done on which days. This method worked well for me then, and I have managed to mimic it with homework deliniation in my current planner, but I had a lot less on my plate back then. For a short time while I was between schools, I had a weekly chore calendar and I mananged to stick with it for several months. Then after I lost Mia, I just stopped doing that.

The problem I'm having with useing these methods now is that I often have unexpected events crop up that confound the entire schedule. Also, there's often so much to do that I literally don't know where to start. As a result, I flail around and very little ends up being accomplished.

I know that time management is a skill that I will have to work on developing, and it is an important skill for me to have if I want to continued to be diverse in my interests and activities.