First Impressions: Learning time management the hard way

Two weeks ago, I was enjoying the good life. Sitting around doing absolutely nothing, taking obscenely long naps, partying it up - it was all very enjoyable. I knew I had midterms coming up a week later, so I figured I would have a nice relaxing weekend before I spent the next weekend studying hard. Foolproof, right?

Well, for most of last weekend, I sat around, took obscenely long naps, and partied it up. I then spent all of Sunday night frantically looking through my notes and such. I then suffered through two of the most miserable, gut-wrenching tests of my life. It was an awful experience that I would not like to repeat (though I still have three more midterms to go).

My point is that time management is a huge issue, especially for people who have never lived in such an unstructured environment. Though my classes account for only 13 hours out of a 168-hour week, there never seems to be enough time to get everything done. There is television to be watched, stupid games to be played on the Internet, and walls to be stared at blankly.

Now, admittedly, I have never been the best at managing my time. My high school routine usually involved getting home from school and doing absolutely nothing for about six hours. Then, at 11 p.m., I would decide what I actually needed to do and see what I could get away with not doing. This is not the recipe for success in college. It is more like the recipe for working the midnight shift at Dunkin' Donuts.

Despite this, I (and many others that I know) continue to write papers at 3 a.m. while barely conscious, hit up Late Night three times in one night despite not being hungry, study minimally for tests, and engage in various other unproductive activities.

Scheduling doesn't really help, either. For example, I had a huge test last Friday. For any of you that live in a cave or any other alternative type of housing in which you have no knowledge of the outside world, on Thursday night we had, oh, I don't know, the BIGGEST BC FOOTBALL GAME OF THE YEAR. Furthermore, there's this "World Series" thing going on that you readers may have heard about. Honestly, does my teacher want everyone to fail? When I get that test back, I'm going to have to beg my mom to keep paying my tuition.

In my teacher's defense, however, Coach Jags and the football team's decision to wait to the very end of the game to pull ahead didn't help my cause either. While the last-minute comeback was very dramatic and exciting, the team did not keep my best interests at heart. A Bowling Green-style rout would have been much better, because I would not have been forced to keep my eyes glued to the screen the whole night. Furthermore, after a win like that, there was no way I could study right after. I had to celebrate our huge victory with everyone else on campus.

Not that I'm complaining or anything, though. This season in BC and Boston-area sports has been amazing, and to sit right smack-dab in the middle of it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Back to my main point: While college is supposed to be four of the most fun years of our lives, it also is supposed to be four of the most studious years of our lives. I think that many people, especially people just entering college, forget the second part (myself included, unfortunately). Over the weekend, however, I made it a point to be prepared for everything in the near future, especially the midterms. I budgeted my time, got a lot of work done, and even managed to have some fun.

In my last column I mentioned "finding the balance" between work and play, and last week was an enlightening experience. Poor time management was a huge problem, but that will no longer happen. There are things more important than sitting in a friend's room doing nothing, or watching college football (unless, of course, BC's playing).