I hope nobody thinks the brief lapse between posts means I have already fallen off the wagon! Actually, I spent most of Thursday violently ill, and was unable to put my plans into action.
Friday was a different story, thank goodness. You see, I'm a full time (even in the summer) non-traditional college student. I'm carrying three senior-level courses
that are all compressed to a 12-week semester. Between them all, I will write 13 short papers, 4 comprehensive research papers, complete two mid-term projects, and then sit through finals. (Let this be a side-lesson: Anyone who tells you it's okay to load up over the recommended summer course load because "Summer classes are easy" is full of shit.)
So one of the main themes of my summer is that I've always got homework to be doing. Always. This is why I picked organization to tackle first. Before today, I had a mess of due-dates, a stack of required reading, and no clue where I really needed to focus my efforts first. A mere 30 minutes plotting all of my deadlines for the next couple of weeks on a calendar changed all of that.
Even better, was that after I had everything sorted out, it was so much easier to get focused and stay focused on one thing until completion. Typically I end up with 5 things all partially done instead of one or two that are complete because I let myself ping-pong between them. I think this stems from a lack of clear direction before I start, which will hopefully not be a problem from here on out.
So far, so good! With Week 1 feeling so successful, I should start considering what I will tackle with Week 2. Considering each of my blog entries are subsequently later and later at night, maybe I should consider sleeping habits next. :)
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2 comments:
Being an English Writing major, I also have a thousand papers to write. I usually will start on them once they are assigned. I've gotten to were I can finish a paper pretty quickly these days (and working an article a day for my blog has only further strengthened my writing speed). The longest time I using spend on is the brainstorming process and then the introduction. After that, I'm good... the rest tends to come easy.
But yeah, organization and setting aside specific time for these type of projects is definitely something that will help you out. I've never really put together a physical calendar for these type of things but I definitely have planned ahead in my head.
I don't find writing particularly difficult. When it comes to academic papers, I spend more time fretting over what to write about than I spend actually writing.
That's why the 13 short papers are really killing me this summer. What we are to write about is too undefined for my tastes. "Pick something from this week's textbook reading that you feel was inadequately explained and go into further detail on it."
It is not uncommon that I will spend all week thinking up and subsequently discarding ideas as too broad, too narrow, or just plain dumb. All the while stressing about the due date of the paper. Typically, I'll come up with something to write about on Friday morning and have the paper done by lunch time. I just wish I could skip the week-long stress-fest before I finally come up with a topic.
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