Time Management Part 7 of 8 – I Messed up, Here’s How I’ll Fix it

The goal of the series is to help you effectively prioritize and adopt consistent time management strategies. I will expand on these strategies but they include:

• Learning to reconcile time management with that of your personal or professional environment;
• Identifying your strengths and weaknesses and build a time management strategy adapted to your personality;
• Optimizing time and energy management;
• Maintaining and increase your credibility and control in managing demands and priorities.

Three Ways I Messed Up

First and foremost, it’s not a big life-and-death situation mess up. But I think it is worth mentioning as another testament of how important it is to be organized and plan ahead. Because in hindsight, I feel like I almost saw it coming.

Lack of Preparation

The three mistakes I made revolve around my end-of-semester exams – also commonly known as “finals” in North America and other parts of the world.

Now, my finals occurred when they were scheduled to do so, which usually is at the end of the school calendar year…like every year. This meant I had nearly the entire semester to prepare – but prepare I did not. First mistake.

Lack of Adaptation

The unexpected occurred at the beginning of April when my employer announced that an on-site company event would take place at the end of the month, right between two of my finals, in a different city than the one I live in. Working and studying, both full-time, requires discipline and organization but with the adrenaline I overlooked several elements:

• I was tired from juggling many personal and professional projects, running around basically since January;
• The time required to fly out and back in, as well as to participate in the on-site company event was not included in my study plan. Yet I did not review my plan accordingly when I decided to attend;
• I had the option to not attend the event, my employer was very understanding. But I could not bear the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) of the first in-person event since the beginning of the pandemic. So I forewent all wisdom and went to the event;
• Not only did I go to the on-site company event, I also did not manage my energy at all when I got there.

Second mistake: I felt my energy levels fluctuating, and noticed how I was increasingly not sticking to my plan. Yet I did not adapt.

Lack of Agency

Leading up to the event, I became overloaded; juggling everything at once, seeing myself get out of control – I was exhausted with everything that was going on and instead of hitting the brakes, I switched off critical thinking and just went through the motions. Third mistake.