Categories: uncategorized
Date: 24 May 2006 23:21:33
Ever since I was old enough to write, I've always writen lists. I can remember being about 8 or 9 and writing out lists of everything I had to do in the coming day. And then I'd go back and fill in times beside each item. I would rarely stick to these times - everything would always take longer. But I'd still write them in. By the time I came to do my GCSEs, I had multicoloured timetables written out for the exam period and weeks before. I was slightly better, at this stage, at knowing what I could fit into a day. But I'd still run behind in my timetable and end up rewriting it. At A level I used a similar scheme. I'd spend several hours, planning in great depth which bit of my revision I was going to do when. My Mum used to say the time would be spent more productively actually revising. But, I dunno - I think it was important for me to have it all planned, even if I didn't stick to it (or maybe I just did it because I liked writing it all out in rainbow colours! - all my revision notes used to be in rainbow colours too!!!!).
I'm still doing the same now. Except I've adapted to slightly more high tech versions. All my organisation stuff is on my laptop. When I'm here in my room, for any length of time, I usually have my laptop on, so that I can keep in touch with the outside world. So, it just seemed to make sense to do it on there. At the moment, I have a file in word called 'To Do!' and it contains a list of everything that I need to do. Most of it is work stuff, but there's a few other things, like SCM stuff and random other bits. At the side of each item, I have written when I plan to do it. And then, when I turn on my computer, I open this file, and highlight in bold, all the things that should be done today. When I've done them, I have the satistfaction of changing the bullet point from a black circle to a tick. At the moment, I have several things on the list which are half done, so I changed their bullet points to a different symbol. Underneath this list, I have also written out a wider time scale plan. I've written the date of my exam, and split the time between now and then up into sections. For each section I have typed out clearly my work objectives for that period. I like doing it on the computer like this, because its easily editable. I can change it easily from day to day. The list is extendable. And if I completely mis-judge how long something will take me, then I don't have to write out a whole new timetable.
Now, tell me. Is this excessive and silly or organised and sensible??? Those who know me well, will know I like to have things planned. And this is one way that I can. My Dad would never dream of doing anything like this in a million years - I mentioned it to him briefly on the phone, and he just laughed at me!