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Time Management


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I'll admit, I've never been good at managing my time. I'm a horrible procrastinator, and tend to put leisure in front of things that need to be done. And I can't really help it. I've always been this way. But I've noticed that this problem of mine has multiplied since discovering ponies.

 

Don't get me wrong, MLP is the best thing to have ever happened to me. When I discovered the show in October, I was on breaking point. I'd just had a horrible breakup, and frankly, I had fallen into a depression based on that and the sudden absence of anything meaningful to occupy myself with (The musical I had been in had just ended.) MLP saved me from myself. However, I think that as a result, I developed a bit of a pony obsession.

 

I didn't notice until recently how fast time has flown since I joined this forum in November. It's like my real life is here, in the forum, and in Equestria, and everything else is inconsequential, which is a dangerous mindset to have in college. I put off doing homework for participating in my roleplays; I deny myself the chance to be social by burying myself in my dorm room, on the internet. I just haven't figured out how to balance ponies with my regular life.

 

How do you do it? How do you manage the delicate balance between ponies and reality? And how would you advise that I might fix my own priorities? Because doing so is not as easy at it seems...

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I know what you mean procrastination can be devastating later on. It is very easy to choose fun over mundane things such as: school, life, etc. It is something that has to be worked out on your own however. I have been having to do the very exact same thing as what you are talking about. Let me tell you it is not easy in the slightest bit.

 

Saying you are going to do something rather than putting it into action is kinda hard. But trust me try and wing yourself off it until things are done then enjoy being on the fourms etc. etc. Its not going to be easy, but trust me it is way better to get those things done rather than them pilling up into a heap that will bite you bad afterwards.

 

Best of luck towards you ;)!  

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  • Event Coordinator

I know how you feel. I'm in high school, and I'm a major procrastinator. Not specifically about ponies, but in general. My recommendation, in addition to what Gone Airbourne said, is to make a schedule for yourself, and then stick to it. 

 

Currently, I just make a schedule in my head on a day by day basis, which is hard to stick to. I'm determined to stick to my schedule today, though. Today, I got home from school about 30 minutes ago. I'm going to use the computer for no more than 30 more minutes for leisure, and then I'm going to do my Spanish 2 and my Pre-Calculus homework. Then, I'll use the computer for a few hours, and then read more out of A Scarlet Pimpernel while I eat dinner for my Advanced English 10 class. Then I'll take a bath, and if I have time I'll use the internet some more, and then go to bed at 9 pm so I'll hopefully get about 9 hours of sleep for school tomorrow. 

 

I've never been into sports and rarely have I been into school activities at all, so most days of the week outside of school is my free time. However, I do usually attend taekwondo class on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Sundays I usually go to church and then to a bible study in the evening. Every once and awhile there will be a church youth group on Saturday, probably around once a month. I'm not a Christian anymore, I believe in a non-religious spirituality, but I still enjoy going to church, youth group, and bible study. 

 

I list my priorities to myself in my head when I feel like I need to make sure that I'm keeping them straight, because it's really tempting to choose fun over everything else, which is what I do most of the time. 

 

I'm working to get my priority list to look something like this:

1. Parents and friends (both IRL friends and internet friends)

2. Spirituality

3. My Health

4. School work / job (when I hopefully get a job for the first time this summer)

5. Free time*

 

(*5 consists of many things that are very important to me. For example, watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and participating in MLP Forums ties into #2. I just have daily responsibilities that I need to take care of first.)

 

So, you could do something like that: list your priorities, write them down and read it every day. There is absolutely nothing wrong with loving to use the internet, MLP forums, etc. It's just very important to keep balance. I know this, because of how unbalanced my life often is, and how I realize how much balance would help. 

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Oh procrastination how we have a Love/Hate relationship :P I totally here you here. I tend to put off doing very important things for anything that interests me. Actually I believe it depends how strongly you use either side of your brain. For example: I'm EXTREMELY left sided in the ol brain department so that means I have a huge interest in science and the such. I found myself constantly sitting infront of my screen just spending hours looking up strange scientific facts such as when I spent a whole 2 hours just researching the textures of dog fur :P So in order to counter act this I set up a few boundaries for myself and played to my own advantages. So i considered that I was quite logical first of all and processed how I can work with that. So I drew up a chart of how I want to end up after a certain period of time and then I drew another chart of how my happiness would vary depending on the original chart. From this I grew the encouragement to actually do stuff and whenever I was more productive than usual or got something done quickly I rewarded myself acordingly. I can see that you'd be very creative so working around that is essential instead of working against it. I would consider balancing time such as setting an alarm for 10 minutes and in that time you could go on the internet. Then after that you look ahead and pick out a suitable amount of work. Set yourself a time limit you think is reasonable and if you go over that time then it takes away from your relaxing time. This should give you more encouragement to get things done quicker. Hope that helps :)

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