To-Do or To-Do? That is the Question

It's happening again! Tonight I lift my head with my stiff neck to see, on the wall, my week planned out before me. Day 1: Lots of work; Day 2: Lots of work, start essay; Day 3: Finish essay (if possible) + lots of work; Day 4: Lots of work for the week after. That is the abridged version of these notes of course because I'm not a complete moron - they are much more substantial than that of course - but you get the idea. I was writing out said week-plan last night when I realised that I was already at Friday. Luckily I realised that I had fired through everything that I needed to do and that ultimately, I should be able to take the weekend 'off'. Sadly the reality of it is that my brain hasn't been switched off since the end of the first week - during which it was technically going anyway but just warming up! 

When you are able to condense a whole week down into a few large post-it notes it's pretty nice. All of the things that you thought you had to do seem to be much more manageable when they are set against the rest of the stuff for some reason. In your head you're always thinking 'I've got this to do and this and this and this' and it seems as though you're never going to get through it all - it gets you down. Writing down all of those things on paper helps to organise things better and can often make a seemingly horrendous workload look that little bit easier. The last couple of weeks have been set out like this for me and I've never felt more in control of my time and my workload than I do just now. I tend not to give myself particularly achievable goals (I guess it's just the nature of what I'm doing that requires me to be stretched ALL THE TIME) but at the same time I seem to be managing to hit them all pretty well. It's the most fulfilling experience to be able to say that I've done everything that I needed to because I can: a) rest easy at night; b) enjoy some guilt-free time to myself; and c) it gives me more motivation to do extra work - something that I feel is vital to success.

If I've said it once, I've rambled on about it a million times: get yourself a to-do list and everything should fall into place a little better. I can't tell you how less stressed I feel as a result. It's also a very cathartic experience to be able to get your to-do list for a particular day, check that you've done everything on it and then chuck it in the bin. The best one for doing that is always the last one of the week but that is a far off dream for me at the moment as I set out into the jungle that is the substantial part of another week at university. 

Thankfully at this moment in time I have now finished today post-it note and it will duly be ripped off the wall, crunched into a little ball and then lobbed ceremoniously into the bin. In fact this post is the last thing on my to-do list for today so I'm just going to stop writing and all will be right in the world for another night!

Thanks for reading,

Martin