This is a project that has been milling about in my head for a few weeks, and I think it's finally time to do it. Before I explain what this is all about, let me just tell you all a bit about myself.
I am a physics major at a technological university, but I don't think that I'll be a physics major for long. I really like it, but I have bigger dreams that involve different things than physics.
Sometimes I get too much enjoyment out of proving that I'm smarter than other people.
I am a terrible procrastinator. I love to write. When I get into fights, I'll think for a really long time before responding to anything to be sure that I'm being honest and fair. Honesty is a big deal to me. I get extremely hyper. I ride and train horses. I love biking down really steep hills, but usually complain bitterly when I have to bike back up them.
And that's pretty much who I am. There's a lot more, but in essence, that gets "me" across.
I also have absolutely no self-discipline. I'd like to meditate more, get better grades, exercise more... all things I know would be good for me and that I have enough time for. But I don't do any of them. In fact, I don't even go to class as often as I should.
By making a public thing of my dedication to getting my life back on track, I'm hoping to be able to control my ineffective-ness.
I'm going to make a list of things that I'd like to get into the habit of doing, and then I'm going to discuss it, and then I'm going to pick the three non-essential things that I'd like to work into my life. After that, I'll plan out a schedule.
Essential things:
1) Class
2) Homework/studying
3) Sleeping
I'm a college student. You'd think that those first two would be obvious, and that the third would be superfluous, but those are the absolutely most important things. When all else fails, those are the three things that I will accomplish.
Now for the list of unnecessary but useful things that I would like to start doing regularly, in somewhat of an order in which I think I should do them.
Non-Essential things:
1) Exercise
2) Playing cello
3) Meditate
4) Write 1,000 words a day
5) Read really good books
6) Keep my room cleaner
I'm sure there is more than that, but it works for now.
There are 168 hours a week. I plan on sleeping 8 hours a night, which, most scientists agree, is a healthy amount. Now there are 112 hours left a week.
18 hours in class.
They say you should spend at least 2 hours out of class studying for every hour in class. That seems reasonable, and considering that this schedule will really only work for me for two weeks, we'll up it to three hours.
There's another 54 hours spent in studying.
Now there are 40 hours left a week.
I work 8 hours a week.
32 hours left.
That's a shocking amount of free time. This is the first time I've ever done this math, and it's making me realize how truly unproductive I am.
That's four and a half hours of nothing, every day.
Goodness.
To quote William James:
"In the main, however, all expert opinion would agree that abrupt acquisition of the new habit is the best way, is there be a real possibility of carrying it out. We must be careful not to give the will so stiff a task as to insure its defeat at the very outset; but, provided one can stand it, a sharp period of suffering, and then a free time, is the best thing to aim at, whether in giving up a habit like that of opium, or in simply changing one's hours of rising or of work. It is surprising
how soon a desire will die of inanition if it be never fed."
I hope that this is the way I can attack this whole situation.
So here we go. I'll report on my success every day, and we'll see how this goes after the first week. At the end of the second week, I'll have to put together a schedule of necessary things for me to continue doing over break, and I can't update as often then because of my lack of internet access, but I'll keep notes.
With my 32 hours of free time. I usually spend an hour and a half a day at meals. Laundry takes 2.5 hours a week, but I do other things during that time, so I'll count only one hour of that. Another half hour a day walking to and from class, though that's probably excessive.
This leaves me with 29 hours of free time a week. I'll pick exercise and meditation as the two things to adopt first, because William James suggests, you shouldn't overload yourself.
The meditation program I will follow is from a book called 8 minute meditation. (I know, I set my goals really high, don't I?). If I meditate every night before I go to sleep, that is 56 minutes a week, or one hour.
The exercise program I'll follow is a combination of podrunner's "First Day to 5-K" and "Fit for life in 15 minutes". The running program is three times a week, a half hour at a time. The workout program is 15 minutes, six days a week. This total out to three hours a week.
25 hours of free time left a week.
To quote from William James once again, there are three maxims that must be followed.
The first is that in the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible.
The second maxim is: Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely
rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again. Continuity of training is the great means of making the nervous system act infallibly right.
A third maxim may be added to the preceding pair: Seize the Very first possible
opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may
experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain.
So there we have it. I'm sure I'll quote dear William again, but for today, that's that.
Stay focused and stay on it!
--Kate
