Time management has never been one of my strong suits. It's possible for me to lose hours goofing off on the internet, usually feeling disappointed in myself once I manage to pull myself away. This never interfered with my schoolwork or other required activities, but always left me feeling like I could do better. Here at Loyola, I'm handling the college workload fairly well, but found myself consistently running on around six hours of sleep, which isn't the best thing to do. So, I went over to The Study to get some time management advice from the tutors there. At the very least, it couldn't hurt...right?

After my Computer Science class one Monday, I took the elevator to the third floor of Jenkins Hall, and walked into the spacious, well-lit room. Going into a back corner, I shared my sleep-deprivation woes with the time-management aide, and showed her the planner I had bought a couple of days ago.

"That won't work," she said matter-of-factly.

"What?" I had a planner, for heaven's sake. That is the epitome of organizational tools. "Why not?"

"It doesn't break down by hours."

She then proceeded to create an hour-by-hour breakdown of my week, using my reported challenge and workload for each of my classes. I was a little shocked by the amount of time devoted exclusively to studying. Apparently, for each hour you are in a college class, you need to study an hour outside of class. There were also a few other rules to go along with it; set it up so your phone reminds you, make up any time you switch up, and never work more than 50 minutes in an hour. It seemed a little much for me, but I told myself I would give it a week, and see what needed tweaking then. I left the Study with new found confidence: I was finally organized!

I made it through the first day before I started having problems. Sometimes, I would not have enough work to do to fill up the designated study hour, and went back to the internet or to some other piece of homework. I was still not in bed by midnight (my desired "bed time") most nights because I would spend all my internet time in one sitting after all my work was done, having "earned it." Whenever I did decide to relax a little in the day, I didn't enjoy it. I knew I had things to do. The reminders are what killed it for me. Another problem area for me is being too hard on myself. Every time one of those little reminder bubbles went off, I would remember all the things I had to do that day and how I was not doing them and was a failure for doing so.

By Thursday, I was a nervous wreck, consumed by stress and on the point of breaking down. Why was I feeling this stressed out? I could handle this before. Then, on the way to get lunch before Calculus, my phone went off with a "helpful reminder" to get to lunch. As my mind was washed over with stress and negativity, I realized that this was the problem, not my work ethic or my course load. After a long talk with my parents, we decided that my problem wasn't time management: it was my ability to handle stress.

I more or less tabled the schedule after that. I still adhere to it, but more as guidelines and less as hard rules. I don't want to diss the Study: for students with less time management acumen than me and without my personal hang-ups, this kind of regimen would probably work better. I may still be going to bed at 1 a.m. every night, but I know that I'll grow more efficient eventually. That planner languishing in my backpack will be put to use to its best capabilities. Someday. Not tonight, though. I have homework.