Since I’ve slashed my priorities, I’ve felt my stress level greatly reduced. However, I’ve been struggling to keep the priorities I’ve settled on, as my only priorities. Throughout the month of June, I kept trying to devise ways to add exercising back into my routine (because I’ve gained quite a bit of weight, again), but theoretically, there just isn’t time. How could I incorporate a regular work-out routine when I could barely make sure I eat three, healthy square meals a day.
Furthermore, I’m an idea gal. Mostly I come up with business ideas, but sometimes I come up with ideas of things I want to try, or write. Unfortunately, I’ve become notorious for starting something new (business idea, hobby, project, etc) and then stopping when life gets in the way.
What I’ve come to realize, however, is that I can’t do a million things all at once. I can’t learn how to play guitar, become an expert at salsa dancing, develop fluency in Spanish, get my master’s degree, write 3 different books, and start a couple of small businesses all at once. And I’m not counting all the professional-type items I’m trying to pursue. I always want to do everything–have to do everything–to be this perfect person. While that may be far reaching, it’s still something I want. But I have to tell myself no.
I’m working on a bucket list (coming soon) to sort of placate my desires temporarily and work on them one at a time. So when I do have free space in my schedule I can work on a particular hobby until I’m satisfied with it.
For some reason, I thought that being in grad school would give me time to work on my different hobbies, crafts, and business ideas. I frequently read on the news “College Student Develops Multi-Million Dollar Business.” Let me just tell you: you don’t have time for that in grad school. Let me rephrase. You don’t have time for that in grad school if you want to sleep. I even hear stories about students studying writing, like me, and then publishing books. Sometimes I can’t help but beat myself up about not being able to overachieve. What I’ve failed to consider is that generally these students don’t have to work part time jobs to pay for school: they just have money readily available from their parents. I don’t know where they get the time, though. Even when I took a semester off working, I focused my attention exclusively on my classes. I was too burnt out to do anything else. This blog has an awesome infographic that explains why media multitasking leads to burn out. But I don’t think this is limited to media consumption. It’s also applicable to activity consumption.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that everyone doesn’t have the energy or the time to do a thousand things all at once. If you multitask, you won’t be able to put your best effort into each and every one of those things. And you may be disappointed with the outcome. If you don’t believe me, here’s scientific evidence and here are 5 examples on how Multitasking can be bad.
Slow Paced (Living) in the United States 