Here’s my harebrained scheme of the week:

Last semester, I vowed to get more bang for my buck timewise. I’d be a productive little guy, I told myself. I’d lock myself up in the library Monday through Friday, emerging at the crack of dawn on Saturday to live it up (or maybe, “live it up”). Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, and all said and done, I’d be a smarter, happier Panda.

Somewhere along the line, the plan broke down. I don’t need to explain; nearly everyone is familiar with life’s wild disregard for personal plans, and by mid-semester, my old (normal) habits from days past had returned, and it became clear that no smarter, happier Panda would rise from the rubble at semester’s end.

Well, this is my counteroffensive.

The plan is to spot exactly where my 24 hours go each day. Is the Internet the culprit? Other people? Blogging?

Here’s how I’m going to do this:

I’m going to write down what I do throughout the day for different time intervals in a log. 2:26 PM – 2:XY PM, for example, would be logged as “vomited on blog”. Anything that takes 2+ minutes will be logged. Each activity will also fall under a category tag:

  • SL (sleep): zzzzz…
  • EC (extracurricular committments): my job, for example, or class government (the category will be broken into subcategories)
  • SP (social pursuits): you know, talking to other people.
  • PP (private pursuits): this includes things like blogging or wasting time on the Internet or learning how to play Parcheesi
  • AC (academics): what?
  • RS (random shit): walking from place to place, and stuff like that

I’ll try to log things in a small notebook, and put the whole thing into an Excel file. At the end of each week, I can get a category-by-category breakdown of where my time went. If I feel extra-tool, I’ll even make a pie chart (and switch my major to Woody Woo or ORFE).

Grades not so hot? Maybe academics should take up more than 2% of my time. People hate me? Maybe I should socialize more – or maybe less. Do I need to increase academic productivity? Or should I spend a greater portion of my weekends studying? Or maybe drop an extracurricular commitment? Very soon, I will have answers.

It seems reasonable enough that knowing life is squarely beating me is the first step in fighting back. I’ll figure out where I ought to allocate my time, do it really well, and be better than the rest of you non-activity-logging fools. I’ll get a better job, earn more money, have a more beautiful wife, love snottier children, and be shoved into a more expensive casket than you. And then won’t you be jealous?

No?

Well, fuck.

Goodnight to you all,

Aditya