In August 2011, I wrote an article on time management; I basically “ranted” about how I started quantifying how much time I spend on virtually everything I do on a daily basis. Well, four months down the line and I am happy to say that I have made tremendous progress; the pilot study seems to have yielded quite a lot of fruit. I am increasingly running out of time; I had initially planned to do away with my MSc in August 2012, but I am so behind that I might find myself creeping into part of 2013 🙁 And so in a desperate attempt to do the needful (finish, submit and go back home) I have decided to take drastic measures —I am taking a hiatus from social networks and I have also decided to adopt Cal Newport’s Fixed-Schedule Productivity system.
I clearly do not have time; besides my regular schedule, I have a couple of other things on my plate –I now working part time (20 hours/week) and also taking part in the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience programme as a mentor.
I had literally turned into a spam filter for my now 560 Facebook friends and dozens of twitter followings –I was but a slave and now I am trying to free myself from the shackles. I do not intend to completely deactivate my Facebook and Twitter accounts like Ravi, but rather just log in once every week —Perhaps on Sundays or Saturdays— and check for updates of newsfeeds I deem important (I am yet to formulate a plan on how I will evaluate the importance of feeds; one thing is certain though, not all of my 560 Facebook friends are important and clearly, not all those I follow on Twitter tweet information I am particularly interested in). I will no longer explicitly tweet, but will probably implicitly do it when I come across information I feel my followers might be interested in.
I am yet to see if I will adhere to my fixed schedule –especially that it will involve me checking emails only twice per day, switching off my IM applications during the greater part of the day and literally only switching to Zombie mode when I get home in the evenings. This is all part of my grand plan to not only improve my productivity even more, but also create time for extra curricula activities –the scouting phase is almost over and its time to experience what Cape Town has to offer.