Well, it’s about that time of the week again, isn’t it? Your article is due today, you’re stressed out because you have a million and one things to do, and your Editor-in-Chief won’t stop pestering you. I think this happens to just about every content creator out there, but I’m here to encourage all of you to view this ‘issue’ in a new light.

First of all, it’s important to note that, as an Editor-in-Chief, I am very prone to this same dilemma. I also write weekly articles for Odyssey, and it isn’t easy. I’m a senior in college, I will be taking my comprehensive exams in a few months, and I still have to decide where my life is headed after I graduate. To top all of that off, I’m the president of a club at my university, I work every Saturday (all day), and I’m responsible for managing all of this in an organized manner. This isn’t easy, of course, but it’s not impossible. Now, one should not assume too much responsibility. We’re only human, but you should know yourself well enough to understand what you’re capable of, and you’re capable of a lot. Trust me.

If I break it down for all of you content creators out there, you’ll quickly understand that I really don’t have much to dissect: you’re responsible for one article a week, and that’s it. I approximate that this article will have taken me about one hour to write today, and that’s one hour of the 168 hours in a week. I’m sure that most of you already understand that being a content creator isn’t the biggest commitment in the world, and it’s not. You choose how committed you want to be to our platform, and I’m simply defining our basic expectations. That’s one of the wonderful things about Odyssey.

The point I’m trying to make is that Odyssey is a tool we can all use to become more self-disciplined. By setting deadlines for ourselves, we not only teach ourselves how to manage time well, but we also become more productive individuals. Most of us are students, and we already have deadlines, granted. Yet, most of those deadlines do not occur weekly. I’m talking about essays, exams, and other forms of projects and major assignments. Those happen at their own pace, and far less frequently, but content creators bear a different form of responsibility. By being held accountable for one article a week, we assume a form of responsibility that can be more difficult to handle. It’s hard to be responsible for anything on a weekly basis, but how we manage this ‘issue’ is a direct result of the kind of people we are. You’ll notice that I’ve thrown single quotation marks around the word “issue” twice now, and I do this because I don’t want us all to assume that this problem is permanent. The issue, if anything, is not one that concerns the difficulty level of being a content creator because this is not difficult at all. The issue, in my opinion, is one of self-discipline. By realizing this, I truly believe that we can all become more productive content creators, Editors-in-Chief, students, and, in general, individuals. Time management is a skill that everyone should work on because it really does help us become more respectable, dependable human beings.

Sincerely,

A concerned Editor-in-Chief