Behind the schedule

Last semester was pretty busy. It sounded like this semester is going to be easier - no group work, so studying should be easier to fit around work, a lot of coursework, but if one gets organised it all should be fine. If one gets really organised, one might even have some free time! All the reading I will be able to do...

I planned and scheduled.

Then I needed to prepare a project proposal for my masters year and started applying for funding to carry out a piece of research over the summer and got so stuck in in personal statements, CVs, drafts of proposals and applications that somehow I've 'lost' a month*.

I was a month behind the schedule I prepared. So I prepared a new schedule. Currently I'm about two weeks behind that new schedule.

Am I just unlucky with lots of things popping up here and there and eating up my time, schedule badly with not enough time or am I simply not organised enough to stick to the schedule? I guess it's probably a mix of the three - I didn't realise that project applications will take so much time, but then I could have probably squeezed a bit more work in-between lectures. I find it hard to do 10 different things one day though, I much prefer to have a big chunk of time to work on something and get it done, as it takes me a long time to warm up. Maybe that's the problem, maybe I need a different way of working. How does one go about re-wiring their brain though?

All will get done in the end, no matter what. It always gets done and I work better under pressure.

Maybe there is no point in planning and scheduling. Go back to general to-do-list instead of a schedule? Or maybe there is some secret way to schedule so that it's actually achievable to do everything according to the schedule?

So to sum up, I'm attempting to find out what's the secret of perfect scheduling and how to re-wire my brain. There must be a way... I'm only going to get busier over the next few years and have to deal with it somehow!


*Will be really worth it if I get the funding and can do the project!