Another good week

It's getting really hard to do this blog. I've been pretty much maintaining over the past few weeks so I don't really have much to share. I've also been working on not procrastinating on my assignments and it's gotten much better since the beginning of the semester. I no longer have to wake up at 4 am every Monday to complete my work, so Mondays are no longer as painful as they used to be. I'm very glad that I'm doing better with managing my time and feel like I've regained control of my life.

I'll do my best to update this blog through the end of the semester but it's getting tougher every day. I guess I'll make this my new thing to change :)

Til next time....

Slip-up

          So I was late for an appointment this morning, which really frustrated me since I was rushing and stressed about being late. But on a positive note, i didn't beat myself down about it and didn't let it ruin my day. I think that since I've been doing well, I'm able to give myself a little break. In any case, the day went on and I was on time for everything else. Overall I'll rate it as a decent day and as always will start fresh tomorrow. :)

Maintenance

Hi all,

I've been maintaining my progress the last several days so there's not much to report. I've been reaching my all of my goals and just making sure that I remain mindful of time and how long it takes me to complete certain things or get from place to place.

Keep you all posted.

Major improvements

 YAY!

 I'm definitely doing better with managing my time. I was on time for every thing last week and plan to keep it going. It definitely helps in reducing stress since I'm not rushing everywhere. As for how it's influencing others, my boyfriend does not get irritated with me in the mornings. When I'm rushing, I'm pretty much all over the place, telling him to get out of my way, telling him to speed as he drives me to work/school and of course just frustrated overall. But over the past week, it's been much better and he actually commented on how much smoothly the mornings have been going. So it's feeling good. Also, it's amazing how making a slight cognitive change can make such a big difference. I really believe that reframing my thoughts to "planning to be early" instead of "avoiding being late" has helped me thus far.

I'm still working on the sleep thing. I've developed a bad habit of sleeping on the couch every night so I'm trying to break that and return to my sleep schedule. Otherwise, I'm just keeping my goals as they are for now and hopefully maintain my improvement for a while.

BTW. I didnt go to the movie but took your suggestion and watched a movie at home instead. It was a great compromise and helped me to acknowledge my improvement.

Please Vote

As of today (Wednesday 09/24)

Just wanted to post a quick update about how my week is going.

I was able to complete Monday on a positive note. I was early for everything I had scheduled and it felt GREAT.

Tuesday is a different story. Life got in my way on Tuesday morning and I of course was late as a result. Then I did not reach my goal for my class (12:25) so after that, I just stopped caring. But I've already met my goal for today so I'm happy :)

I will give myself some credit for Monday and of course will keep chopping away at this. Since I've changed my approach to attempting to be early rather than avoiding being late, I think things have been going much more smoothly. So now, I leave 15 minutes earlier than I would have previously and it just seems easier this way. I'm also working on the sleep schedule and I do think that it's making a difference as well. The one thing I haven't considered yet is how to know if/when these changes are impacting others. I guess I'll give that some thought and see how I can "measure" it. As always, I'm open to suggestions as well so feel free to share your ideas.

Regarding Tuesday, here's what happened: As I was about to walk out of my apartment to head to work (which would have allowed me to be on time) I stepped on a piece of glass (my vase broke a few days ago & I must have missed a spot while cleaning) and had to tend to my wound. I'll spare you the details but it took me about 10-15 minutes to address that. As a result, I was late for work, and although I wasn't late for class I didn't reach my goal of 12:25. Since I considered that to be a failure, I decided that my goals for the day were not met and stopped caring which of course led me to be late for my next class.  So the question is; was this a "life happens" situation, or a "Kristy sucks at life" situation.

Since this is a bit of a muddy situation, I want you to decide if I should still get my weekly reward or not. So please cast your votes while posting your comments and I will go with the majority's opinion.

Reminder of weekly goal and reward:

Goal: To be on time for ALL class and work related appointments from Monday to Friday
Reward: Going to the movies on the weekend if I achieve my goal for the week.

Goals for the rest of the week:
Thursday:
Class by 9:20
Work by 12:25

Friday
Work by 7:30
Lunch by 11:45
work by 1:45

Thanks so much for your support on this.

Failed Mission!

As I shared in my last posting, the only barrier between me and my movie was being on time on friday. And by the title of this post, you can conclude that I failed to meet that objective. What happened? Well I completely over slept and even though I wasn't technically late for work, I was late enough not to be able to set up as I needed to. So needless to say, there was no movie this weekend. On a positive note, my sleep was totally worth it and I had an awesome dream in the process lol.

Regarding the sleep issue, I'm really gonna give that a try starting tonight and see if that helps. Also I'm trying to look at it as trying to be early instead of trying to not be late so we will see if that helps.

Like last week, my goal is to succeed at being early for all of my classes and work during the week and get my reward (a movie) during the weekend. So, I hope I do better this time around.

My goals for the remainder of today and tomorrow are:

Today 09/24
Arrive to class by 2:25

Tomorrow (9/25)

Arrive to work by 8:30
Arrive to class by 12:25

On a final note, I was early for class this morning which I started to slack on as well. So I'll take that as a good sign for the week.

...and struggling still

Hi Peeps.

This week has been going well overall. Actually, I was early to all of my school and work related appointments until class this morning, which completely bummed me out  since I was really shooting for a perfect week :( I'll take the progress either way of course. I'll keep trying to focus on the successes rather than the failures and keeping the negative self-talk under control. But ,as long as I arrive on time tomorrow morning, I will be seeing my movie this weekend. So Excited!

I am definitely motivated for change and making a conscious effort to get this monkey off my back, but it's still hard. Actually it's frustrating, because the only one I can blame when I'm late is myself lol. No scapegoats are available for this one :(

As I'm making these efforts, I've started to realize that being on-time is a symptom and not the actual problem. One of the things that impact my tendency to procrastinate overall is off course avoidance (like we discussed in class); but also feeling exhausted. I'm pretty much always pressing the "snooze" button before a task. So, on top of continuing my current efforts to be on time, I will also go to bed at a regular time. I'm thinking that if I don't feel so drained, then I'll be able to get up more easily, and I'll be on time more. Sounds like a good idea to me. So I'll start to monitor that as well to see if it makes a difference.

I still think I'm lacking structure and definition for these behaviors so I'm listing my goals below so it can be in black & white and I can really see if/where the changes are happening.

Here is what I would like to accomplish to finish out my week:

Friday (9/21)
Arrive at Dawson by 7:30
Arrive at appointment by 11:30

Not too bad right? Please keep sharing your thoughts and ideas. They really do make a difference. Thanks for the support ya'll.

the struggle continues...

After reading your comments, I feel a bit rejuvenated to resume/continue this time management challenge. Over the past 2 weeks, I've have some definite improvements and some disappointments as well, but I keep trying. So following this posting I will revise my schedule and add in more structure. I really think that will make a difference. Also, I've finally figured out what my reward will be; I will go to the movies at the end of every week for being on time to all of my classes and work obligations. I'll focus on those two things for now and we'll see how I do.
In addition to getting to places on time, I also struggle with the amount of time that i allow to complete a particular task. So in my head, I think that doing this blog will take five minutes but it really takes 10. I'm not sure where that comes from, but it feels like I have a skewed perception of time lol. If I can succeed in reaching my goal for consistently being on time to classes, work, and meetings, I'll start working on my time allotment for tasks. Man, it's a looong road ahead.. but thanks for the support.

BTW your comments are right on regarding my focus on the failures more than the accomplishments. That's where the negative self-talk and irrational thinking comes into play lol. Unfortunately that's a bigger monster than this blog can handle, but at least I'm aware of it right?

Thanks again everyone.

Kristy

2 Days in..

So far it's been "ok". I'm definitely making an effort to improve my timeliness. Regarding my goal for Monday, I was 2 mins late to my class but early for my meeting. Too bad that doesn't even out lol.

Tuesday- I was late for work (20 mins) but in time for both classes.

And today, I was late for an appointment (10 mins) but on time for everything else. However, i completely missed a meeting this morning because I unintentionally double booked myself. The sucky part is that i also left my phone at home and could not contact the person to reschedule. So yeah... I feel really crappy about that.

Overall, I am trying to be mindful of my time and scheduling but as you can tell, i got a looong ways to go. BTW, I'm definitely not doing any type of positive reinforcement here. So then my question is, do i need to apply a reinforcement schedule or any other type of reward/punishment tools in order to make this type of change? Can I just make this change for intrinsic satisfaction or do I need to get something else out of it in order to be successful? Also, should I try to structure this exercise more i.e. develop more specific goals so that i can better monitor progress or failure? Any thoughts or ideas?

Looking forward to some feedback :)

...And Go!

Hey there,


Diving right in... So as I stated in class on Thursday, I will use this blog to track and hopefully improve my time management skills/ reduce my tendency to procrastinate. 

My history of procrastination:

I've procrastinated all my life, so this behavior is thoroughly engrained in me; I actually see it as part of my character (i.e. Kristy: daughter, fighter, and procrastinator). I'm not quite sure where it comes from but I do know that I hate being late for everything. People who know me just expect me to be late; which doesn't help. And the consequences for being late are so minute, they hardly ever have an impact. I do feel shame when I'm late; however, that doesn't seem to affect me enough to change this behavior.

 I have attempted to change this behavior countless times before, but obviously without any sustained success. I actually reached a point where I simply stopped trying to be on-time or determining timelines to accomplish work related tasks. In fact, this was my new years resolution. I just got tired of the pressure I put on myself to improve my time management and the continuous failures of my attempts. So I gave up, and tried to accept it as a part of who I am. The problem with that is other people are impacted by my lack of timeliness. By being late, I make other people late. This wouldn't be a problem but they start to complain, and get irritated with me; which sucks.

Other than being constantly late for everything (except classes ), another downfall to procrastinating is pulling the all-nighters to meet deadlines for work and school. Although I don't enjoy doing it, I do enjoy the pressure that comes with performing a last minute task. It feels like a rush of madness, where I don't have time to think. I just do it and pray for the best. And when I'm finally done, it feels like I ran a marathon and can now exhale the deep breath I took 12 hours earlier. Such an awesome feeling! It gives me a great sense of accomplishment, where as pacing myself to complete a task is simply anti-climactic. Never the less, procrastinating does have a negative impact on my life, so I will reluctantly make another attempt to improve my time management.

So, I think I'm gonna use good ole positive reinforcement to begin tracking my efforts. I will set daily and/or weekly goals and reward myself with something if I achieve my tasks. But, here is where we encounter problem # 1. I never know what to reward myself with. Also, being a product child of the 80's, I'm all about instant gratification. I mean, when I try to reward myself for reaching a goal, it seems pointless; since I would have rewarded myself anyway. In any case, I will give this method another try and hope it works. BTW, I'm open to suggestions to address this, so feel free to throw some ideas out there. 

My goal for tomorrow:
Be on time for classes and meeting.
Reward: ? (can't think of one)

Already off to a bad start. Wish me luck! :)