JohnChops said:
So latley ive been getting really stressed out about my schedule . I have to balance work, school (18 credits), lifting, studying, and a social life. What do you guys do to balance everything?! HELP ME BALANCE MY LIFE! I cant take this stress anymore, i swear i lose motivation to do things due to stress it sucks... i miss being motivated again. Somehow I lost my balance, i think because I took to many clases this semester however I want to balance it out. Help me out sosuave!
I am in a lot of ways a lot like you are. I like to do a lot of things; I run a business, I am starting another, i have a 4 and a half year old son, a lovely wife who requires a tad bit of attention every once in a while, I gamble on horse racing year round daily, i am a gym rat, I like to read, I play the piano, I like to listen to jazz and some where in there i have to do **** to entertain myself. From time to time i like to drop in on AA meetings, a few times a month, I also volunteer my time when i can to the big brothers big sisters program
See to me, I would rather spend my time figuring out how to do all this **** then to ***** about women.. women will come as a byproduct to the above. And the way I am wired, If I don't find a way to do all of the above, I'm going to be miserable. I'm balls to the wall all the time.
So I'm going to try to help you out. I have not perfected this, but I believe i am ahead of 99% of the people out there with how i do **** in this regard, and I'm going to pass on this information to you and anyone else who wants to learn it free of charge. Also take into consideration this accounts for how I process things and how I best work.. you might want to change things up a little but this is what works for me and that's all I can do.
This is the by product of 10 years of trial and error, **** ups, pissed off nights for ****ing up, asking myself retiorocial questions time and time again about how I work and how can i honestly go to sleep every night knowing, not trying to convince myself that I kicked ass.
I start by making my year plans. I have various things I want to accomplish by certain years, out to 3 years (2015). When I think of something I jot it done in my excel sheet. For instance, there is a site I'm working on for a personal project that I want to have done and running by next year, so I will put it on my 2013 list. I want to visit italy by 2014 so i put that there, etc. I try tom ake it as realistic as possible while at the same time, pushing myself; if it's too unrealistic i won't mentally try to do it because i know i can'[t, but if it's too easy i'm not pushing myself and I'm going to be miserable.
This more than anything is just a reminder, I don't; actually plan my days around this, but I need it beucase I want to do a lot of **** and i might forget soemthing if i don't write it down
now let's get down to the good ****. Now I go to the month level. For instance we are in November.
I take an excel sheet and I break it up into 6 catogories
- Entertainment
- Company
- Personal
- Health Related
- Horse Racing
- Learning
To me, these are the 6 most important things and each have to have their own main category. Then I spend a full day, generally the first of the month, braining storming **** i want to get done int his month in regards tot his category, etc.
To help me do this, i break it down utnil sub categories. for instance, entertainment has
- Entertainment
- Video Games I want to beat
- TV Shows I want to watch
- Movies I want to watch
- Get out the house/ do ****
This is for me. You can change up the sub categories however you want to best fit your life style but this is how I roll. I have learned the very hard way.. i'm going to entertain myself one way or the other lol, either the right way or the wrong way lol. when I was younger I was 10000% work all the time, that least me to the dope house. I still work a LOT more than i play but I do play. LIke this month on the entertainment list, I want to watch the entire west wing series. I'm about at the end of season 3. I want to also beat resident evil 6 which i have not got around to playing, and I want to go to watch all the Arkansan football games and basketball games live, one day a week I take my laptop and work at Starbucks just tog et out the house (i work from home), and once a week i try to get out the house to go listen to some live jazz.
If you want to use this as a template I've uploaded it here
https://rapidshare.com/files/3713816741/template.xlsx
That's a good start, but that's not even half of it. I just work backwards. Now I have to figure out what I need to do on a daily basis. To do this, I use, pretty much the same sheet, however without the sub categories. I've attached it here
https://rapidshare.com/files/2698805638/template%202.xlsx
I used to do this the day before, but i have found out that i work best if i make my to do list int he morning of that day. My priorities might change from day to day and i hate spending time putting something together for today that is now irrelevant. so every morning, I look at my monthly sheet and i ask myself what do I need to do to have a kick ass day in this department. So for instance, I might want to watch 2 episodes of the west wing, i am a monopoly addict so I like to play a game on my ps3 or with my wife every other day, we will play that tonight lol, i have to send out 2 proposals for my company and i have to remind 2 clients that their bills are due plus i need to look new clients, I need to take my son to go buy him some new shoes and i need to pick up some **** for thanksgiving as we are cooking, i'm working on teaching myself how to play a new jazz song (nature boy) so I would like to get 30 or so minutes in for that today, today is a dark day for horse racing nothing goes on on Tuesdays here in the day time but Australia runs on Tuesday nights so later on i'm doing that, and for learning I'm reading a book about the 5 worst presidents of the US, i read a chapter of it a day. I also went to the gym, i make sure i drink a gallon of orange juice a day (i love orange juice) and i planned my eating schedule out to make sure it fits with my cals in / cals out / figured out with the misses is cooking and made sure we are on the same page. lol i also have to go get some ice cream, i don't care for ice cream all that much but my wife is cooking salmon and the only way i can get my son to eat the salmon is to promise him ice cream afterwards... there are other things without getting too detailed that i need to get done today.
now, this sounds like a great start. but im' not done. this is the final part.
some have herd me say this but i break my schedule every day up into 2 minute intervals. I'm not lying. here's the sheet
https://rapidshare.com/files/2698805638/template%202.xlsx
so now, i take all the **** that i brain stormed that i want to do for that day and i start plugging it in. I start with the big **** first, like i create a project checklist for my employees, that takes about 1 hour to do, so I get that done. horse racing is going to take from 7pm to 12pm so i get that.
this doesn't take as long as you would think i can do this in about 15-20 minutes and have every minute covered. now starting off, you are going to over estimate how long **** takes beucase you have never counted how long things take but you will get the hang of it. watch, you will find that if you do it right, that not only can you do everything you want to do.. you usually will find time to do more ****. most people don't have a clue how much time they waste on a normal day.
my wife cracks at me sometimes like if we go out she will say "how long do we got lol" but she knows this is how i roll.
2 things i want to stress
1. dont' take the short cut of skipping the 2nd step. it's the-most important step beucase it's where you get all the **** that will make you happy out on paper if you get done. i've tried it it doesn't work lol
2. if you honestly, want to do it, put it on the list. don't try to short cut and say 'well i know i'm not going to have time to do this". i call my schedule my kick ass day, buecase i'm not concerned about what time i have to go to bed or how much **** normal people can do in a nomral day i will figure all this **** out once i start making the schedule. all i want to do is ask myself what do i have to do to look myself in the mirror and be 100% happy.
once you have put it all on paper it shows you what you need to do .for instance, we have probably eaten at the dinner table.. 3 itmes all year. it's a ****ing waste of time. we will generlaly watch TV while eating dinner lol, kill 2 birds with one stone.
hope i have been of help.
and maybe not the 2 minute mark hehe. But yeah its so hard to fit all the stuff I want to do in a day and I just end up studying, lifting and going to sleep. I need some variation, id rather fit it in than to drop it. We are pretty much alike, didnt know you designed websites either.I just learned html/css/java. Ill let ya know how it goes! Time to get uhh plotting.