Time as a commodity

I've been thinking more and more about time usage in general. I think when it comes to most areas of my life (time management included), I'm quite neurotic and very unsure of myself. Thus I start coming up with ideas and conclusions to justify my questioning of these things.

The reason why I've been thinking about time specifically is because it seems to be the universal thing that everyone doesn't have enough of. Also with my 2 big projects due this Wednesday along with impending finals, time management is definitely going to be a big issue. Since last semester was such an epic fail on the school front in my case, I'm gonna try and analyze my attitude towards time versus what my attitude should be. Let's begin with the madness.

Typically I'm the kind of guy who likes to squeeze the most of whatever time I get. This would explain the reasoning behind a whole bunch of my habits/actions:

1) Why my guitar is positioned near my computer: this is because during load times and/or downtimes of commercials and what have you, I like to mess around on the guitar. Also I can see tabs right off my screen.

2) I always watch tv or some kind of video during meals: if you've ever seen my basement, there's ALWAYS at least one dish or glass from a previous meal / video watching sessions. I like to think of it like reading the newspaper, but in this way I finish TV series and what have you during meals

3) I'm habitually late to everything: Time wise, there's no real merit of being early to anything. You waste time by not going as fast since you're not in a rush, and when you do get there you end up waiting for all the other late mofos. Nope, instead I tend to do whatever menial task I can before I step out the door and speed down the roads.

4) I like to plan my car trips accordingly to finish all my things in order: I think everyone enjoys it when they can plan out a car trip efficiently so that no time is wasted.

5) I study/cram last second: I find a majority of the time I can get away (pass or get a decent mark) with studying in the very last second. Why would I take the extra 2-4 hours of studying when it'll only translate to a 5-10% difference?


Those are just a couple of examples. I'm not encouraging this way of life at all, I'm just saying that it's how I currently think. In fact, in most cases if not all, this way of thinking comes back to bite me in the ass later on:

1) Why my guitar is positioned near my computer: This means I'm usually too preoccupied on the computer to get any real practice in, or when I do finally get the chance to play, it's only a few minutes at most.

2) I always watch videos during meals: As stated earlier, this often means tons of dirty dishes left in the basement as usual which isn't good at all. Also most of the time, I end up watching an entire video or episode when that wasn't the original intention. Thus I end up spending more time watching TV than I can afford.

3) I'm habitually late to everything: There's so many ways that this can be bad and I don't need to explain it.

4) I like to plan my car trips to get things done in order: This means that I usually don't go and get those things done unless I have other things that also need to be done. This translates to videos not getting returned on time, groceries not being bought, etc.

5) I study/cram last second: Well we know how this screwed me last semester, so yeah..


My point is that I need to shift my understanding of these thigns altogether. Although if done properly, these techniques have their merits. Even with that said, there's less of a chance of them being done properly than me getting screwed in the end, so is it really worth it?

On the way home from a group meeting today, I thought of why I'm typically so casual with my time and how I use it. I think for most people who are in the same boat, it's easy to not worry about what you do with your time because time is free in essence. You don't need to pay for your time that you have to watch tv, surf the net, etc.

But really when you think about it, time isn't necessarily completely free. Going back to my econ style rants, there's an opportunity cost to everything. So for example, for all of the time I spent on playing Call of Duty, if I had spent that on writing a script or working on my monologue, there could have been some significant development in that regard. To take it a step further, for all the time that people spend on TV or media in general, all that time could have been spent on losing weight thus gaining more confidence and potentially altering your life completely.

Now obviously there has to be limits and balances on how much time we can spend doing certain things. Like if I had a complete day off, all 24 hours, I couldn't work out for the entire day, that would be unreasonable to expect. Also certain people have the ability to learn or do things faster than others, that much is definite. But what I'm saying is that people in general (myself included) get caught in the trap of thinking that time is free and that any free time should be spent on whatever yields the most entertainment/fun. I think we need to alter our perspectives a little bit and start to realize how much is possible with more focus, and a better understanding of how we allocate our time.