Time management is a truly crucial skill
2025-01-26
With the exams coming closer and closer, the number one thing I'm learning has actually nothing to do with computer science, but life in general - I'm talking about time management. The reality simply is that if you want to do everything perfectly you just have too much to do for a 24-hour day and thus you need to clearly prioritize or find new ways of doing stuff. So let's talk about the lessons I learned about time management as a university student so far and see how you might just be able to handle everything...
First and foremost, there just are certain things you need to spend the time on like grocery shopping, cooking, eating, housekeeping et cetera. These might not always be fun, but you need to do them in order to stay alive and maintain a certain living standard that allows you to do everything else. There might be certain ways to save a bit of time on them, but at least I haven't found a maintainable way to cheat on any of them and thus have chosen to openly embrace them and make them at least a little more fun by frequently doing them together with friends. However, for many other non-crucial tasks there's quite a bit of room to save time and effort. In general, I can highly recommend adopting the Pareto principle and focusing on achieving acceptable results quickly instead of wasting time with perfection - especially if they have nothing to do with your long-term development or personal happiness. This doesn't mean you should be sloppy with everything you do, but accepting and communicating that you're not willing to improve on certain things due to time constraints or more precisely your time prioritization is a completely valid point to make - and some much more people should adopt this attitude.
Everyone has certain priorities and they are the best metric you can find to allocate your time reasonably. In general, a good question to ask is whether or not and how much doing something brings you closer to your goals, makes you more productive or simply happy and prioritize your time accordingly. Ultimately, the only meaningful goal of life is to have a good time here on earth, do what you're truly passionate about and maybe even make the world that little bit better. Especially happiness is something our society cares much too little about and that's a huge mistake. If you ever feel down or even have an existential crisis, always ask yourself why you're doing what you're currently up to and if the answer isn't for your long-term happiness (which can include wealth, your family et cetera), you should properly adjust some things - even if that means changing jobs, completely switching fields or adopting a new lifestyle.
Another thing that should be absolutely clear, but is often neglected in everyday life is that you absolutely need to allow yourself the necessary time for sleep, exercise and some social activities - no matter how many hours they occupy. Life (almost) without them is absolutely unhealthy, will ruin you in the long run and most importantly is just not fun - wouldn't recommend. Together with balanced nutrition, these three aspects lay the groundwork for your most valuable abilities and best work - thus they have to get particularly prioritized in stressful times, even if that feels counterintuitive. Have you ever noticed how much happier and more energized you feel after a good portion of sleep, a long walk and simply some time with friends? This effect is almost magical and every one of us should make increasing use of it the more other work we have to do. If you are in metaphorical "bad shape" you can work all the time you want, you still won't really move forward and just waste your time - thus simply see these little things as a way to balance and refuel.
Last but certainly not least, I want to say a word about the cult of optimizing tasks and workflows. Sure, it CAN be worth the effort if you do them frequently or they take a lot of time, but DOESN'T HAVE TO and is more often than not simply a way of procrastinating over the real work at hand. Instead of going down the optimization rabbit hole, simply focus on the work at hand and try to get it done as quickly as possible. On that note, also remember that done is always better than perfect and that things can always be improved later on.
With that said, I hope you learned a thing or two about time management and found this one interesting. As always, feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments down below and have a lovely day...