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Time Management

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As the internals roll by, managing time becomes increasingly difficult. The pressure of assignments, exams, and practicals starts setting in, and time management takes a back seat.

In order to be productive and meet deadlines, time management is an essential tool. The concept may sound fascinating, but the actual task is harder than it seems.

Here are a couple of tricks to manage time successfully:

 

  1. Be Realistic in Setting Goals.

Setting goals is easy, but following through with them proves to be extremely difficult. Human nature dictates a sense of overachievement, which is not always practical, and may end with disappointment. Setting realistic goals is a better way to start the process of task achievement, or improvement. Smaller tasks spaced over a period of time are more likely to get completed, and reduce last minute anxiety.

 

  1. Make a P.O.A (Plan Of Action)

Instead of making a timetable, make a plan of action. While the two may not vary from each other in terms of similarity, the term “plan of action” tricks your brain into believing this new phrase will help put into motion the required work to be completed. Insead of assigning slots of time, a simple list with the work to be completed in a particular day can be made, with no time constraints for each task.

 

  1. Create a Routine

A proper routine wherein everyday tasks follow a set pattern, helps bring order to a chaotic state of mind and body. Insufficient sleep, “impairs the ability to think, to handle stress, to maintain a healthy immune system, and to moderate emotions.”,  according to the World Health Organisation. Receiving enough sleep, along with moderate daily exercise and proper meals, can improve work productivity significantly.

 

  1. Cut Out Junk Food

 

“Food is like a pharmaceutical compound that affects the brain”

-Fernando Gómez-Pinilla, Professor of neurosurgery and physiological science at UCLA.

Believe it or not, but cutting out junk food can actually help you manage your time better. Junk food is known to decrease concentration levels, and thus inhibit the ability to complete tasks on time. By reducing the consumption of fast food, or junk food, and increasing the intake of healthy food which contains substances like omega-3 fatty acids, (found in walnuts, soyabean etc) brain functioning can be boosted, and as a consequence, time can be better managed.

 

  1. Say No to Your Phone

Not fiddling with your phone while working is almost impossible in a realistic scenario, so instead, using apps like digital detox, lock you out of your phone until a pre decided time. The app allows you to set a time before which you are not allowed to use your phone, other than an allotted amount of breaks. You can choose the degree of difficulty in your app blockers, starting with apps that only give warnings, to apps that ask for money to unlock the phone before the designated time.

 

Time management is crucial to maintain an optimum workflow and keep stress and anxiety at bay. Putting even some of these tips and tricks to work, can help bring ease to daily functioning and increase productivity.

 

Feature Image Credits: Toggl

 

Meher Gill

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1 PM has the lingering quest of being one of the most ignored hours of the day, for a lot of us and let us explore how!

Bringing in a little personal excerpt before diving into the article.

‘I look at the clock rounding about to at least six to seven times a day, or maybe even more. The little gizmo in my hand keeps me up to beat about the time. The first time I peer at my clock is when I have woken up, which is usually around 8-9 AM on the weekends, being an early bird for the morning classes in the weekdays.

The next time would probably be around eleven or twelvish when I have completed the morning routines and have set my mind to work or plan out a way to relax, if I am into the aura of celebrating two free days. There are days when my eyes catch the clock treading on like a steam boat at the 12:57 mark, or sometimes, lucky me at dot 12:59, but never ever at 1 PM. It is this hour of the day which just vanished without me being responsible for noticing its presence. There are luckier days when my eye may catch the clock running like a jet plane at 1:59, indicating and luring me into the world of slumber as afternoon naps are a must. But how did the 1 PM go away? When? How? Why? What? The WH family keeps pestering my brain as I try to find an answer to this ranting, but unfortunately I don’t.

Am I travelling time? Does my clock jump from a twelve to a two directly? How is the 1 PM so invisible in my life?’

1 PM feature image
Image Credits – MIT News

I PM addt. image 1 1 PM addt. image 3 1 pm addt. image 2

1 PM is often the time of the day, which goes away in a whiff! While for most of us 1 PM might be a reminder of a lunch party but apart from that in a normal day, where does the 1 PM go away? How is it an hour which un-intentionally gets ignored or marks an un-triumphed glory around it? Is it our bad to not witness how quickly it flows away, or is our day so loomy gloomy that we simply do not wish to pay attention to the hours we spend away being un-productive?

I usually am never free at or around 1. On the weekdays, my classes take up my time, or if I get free early, then it is the travel time with my earphones plugged in ramming up the music, letting time pass on the long journey back home, and on the weekends, I guess I just sleep through it” remarks Anoushka Raina, a second year student of B.Sc. Life Sciences in Miranda House.

If a cumulative is taken, showcasing the hour wise allocation of activities, on a normal day, 1 PM for a lot of people goes away in classes, for college students and professors, or in the corporate sector in the form of a lunch break. While it is an active time for a majority of colleges in which either classes take place or the red-bricked campus is flooded with excited and tired students, food plates in one hand, phone in the other, giggles and gossip on the mouth. Individual productivity is compromised, when taking the individual as a microcosm.

Well days apart from college, 12 noon is considered as a benchmark to fulfill numerous tasks and the time period around 1 passes unnoticed due to the continuity of me being busy in some stuff.” says Nikki Chaudhary, a second year student of English Honors in Maitreyi College. She further adds, “Or sometimes I am just preparing myself for some lunch with a friend or outing with family or even sleeping, therefore 1 pm becomes the preparatory unrecognized hour”.

1 pm addt. image 2
Image Credits – Alvin Imine

When taking the consensus of the weekend, it is usually associated as the rest hour or an hour when a lot of commitments are not put forth! I feel 1 PM is usually the rest hour or something in which a lot of people don’t put their commitments to. My weekend morning classes go on till a maximum of 12:30 PM. Parents and even students prefer to keep it either in the evenings or the early morning. That for me is also I reason I pack up early and usually spend that 1 PM taking a rest”, states Miss Pompy Gogoi, Founder Director of Pompy Nrityalaya, a popular Bharatanatyam dance institute in South-West Delhi.

Jon Udell, a blogger at WordPress.com, feels that there is a need to go by the rule that eleven-thirty AM to one PM should be the noted brunch-lunch hours. While lunching is more perceptive with people laying out their own times, statistics reveal that 1 PM is the lunching hour for a majority of people.

1 PM addt. image 3
Image Credits – Julienne Millien

 

If time is seen through a snack and break point of view, it is the mornings, when the first tea break is taken and usually before the work starts to ensure one is wide awake.  And then I feel at around 4 PM is my team time. It is when I need a break, to walk around and relax for a bit. Lunch time for me is usually around 1-2 PM, depending on the work situation”, remarks Arpita Chhikara, a business analyst at KPMG.

While so many of us complain we do not have a sufficient amount of time, a lot of us actually forget the soulful hours of the day we just miss upon or do not assign something productive for it. Is 1 PM simply forgotten or is it just ignored in the lieu to succumb to relaxation? If only, we could truly enjoy the beauty and try to figure out the possibilities of 1 PM, other than the set idiosyncrasies’ of this lost and unexplored hour.

Feature Image Credits:   Quora

Avnika Chhikara

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A college student has many definitive issues that almost all college students feel. Given below are a few such issues. Read on and let us know if you relate to any of them.

  • Perpetually broke

    If you’re a college student, you are bound to be broke. One of the biggest issues which almost all college students face is handling and dealing with finances and the going gets even rougher when you live away from home. No matter what ensues, no college kid ever has had enough money at any given point of time to go all out and spend on themselves without thinking of all the other expenses they have and doing a mental check of finances. Whenever the cash gets low, the thinking gets irrational. “Was it right to spend Rs. 30 on that rickshaw ride? Honestly, I could’ve just walked!”

  • Being politically, socially correct at all times 

    We’ve all heard the fact that when you enter college, you step into the real world. In college, you meet many new people from different walks of life. Diversity gets a whole new meaning and you realise just how different people can be from each other. In a situation like this, it’s almost impossible to not offend anyone with a joke you crack or a casual remark you pass. But, that’s just how you learn to survive outside the four walls of school.

  • Time management

    College life is so much more than just unit tests, exams and assignments. You have societies which literally suck the life out of you, internships that exhaust; which you have to straddle with academics. Time management is apparently something almost none of us understand or master. One often finds himself/herself perpetually complaining about never-ending work, sleepless nights and time that almost never is enough. The key is to not put your feet into too many boats at the same time and prevent yourself from reaching the burnout phase.

  • Socialising

    A very important aspect of College is friends. There are school friends who you have to keep in touch with, new college friends who you have to get to know better and deal with everyday, society friends, tuition mates, long lost friends and just friends left, right and centre. And there’s so much to do with them! Attend events, attend the best fests in town, explore the city, go to the famous hangout places and go to the not so famous hangout places. And that’s when the conflicts and problems arise because no one knows how to hangout with everyone and visit every place and cross every item off the bucket list and handle regular college stuff, all at the same time. (Prioritisation is the word.)

Feature image credits:
www.sovhealth.com

Akshara Srivastava
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