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The New Life


Now that I've been here a week (and somewhat fixed the RSS feed updater. I must say I don't know what I'm actually doing with it, and I just basically took a template from other blogs and replaced it with what I want), I feel... really short of time AGAIN.

This place is wonderful. The cold biting into you in the morning and late at night. (I like to wear thin. So at temperatures of around 10-12, I'm just wearing a windbreaker, and usually unzipped.) The really pleasing architecture (a big change from all the modern buildings in Singapore). The number of clubs and societies available to join (I'm spreading myself really thin signing up for like 8 of them or so) is fantastic! And lastly, omgosh this is the best ever: THE SUN NEVER RISES ABOVE 61 DEGREES!!! And as of today it won't rise above 30 degrees for the entire of this term!!! If you're a photographer, you'll know what that means � ultra long golden hours. YES! (to those who don't know, it basically is the best sunlight conditions for great photos!)

So one major reason I'm really happy about this place is the photo opportunities! I'll try to put some of the pics up in the gallery soon. Absolutely splendid!

Anyway, to return, I've come to realise that this place offers so many opportunities (one person from the Eco-racing team told me about his internship with McLaren Mercedes), and so much fun, it's difficult for me to actually organise a schedule. Lectures are fixed, but even then, the schedule is pretty weird, and it changes from week to week (took me a while to understand how the schedule was to be read), and that's pretty much about it. Supervisions aren't, clubs and societies, depending on which ones, might be fixed, or tend to move around a little. Meals are fixed, but there are special "formals" which serve good food (that you must pay extra for naturally) kind of pop up now and then, and there's no one who knows the schedule for each and every one of those.

There's lots of dynamicity, and it's difficult to predict what's next (except lectures)! So the only way, I guess, is to make use of every possible free time, to do work, to do stuff that needs to be done. I have to try and perform as efficiently as possible. Saving time here and there will really add up. Considering that there's travelling involved (not that it's a great issue, but it does affect efficiency), to achieve efficiency, there's a little more to think about than whether a certain to-do task fits the free slot perfectly or not. (Note that if a task requires 20mins to do, and you have 30mins, and no other task that requires 10mins, that 10mins is going to be wasted. Find a task that takes 30mins, two 15mins tasks, or similar. Get the point?)

It's cluttered enough that I'll rather not spend the time to think much about how should I order my tasks to complete everything as efficiently as possible. Instead, I'm now operating solely on a priority flowchart. At the top, is time. Anything that frees up time is tackled first. Basically any task that cannot be avoided, or any task that requires the shortest amount of time at the present situation compared to any other time in the future (this usually happens when you are at a certain location but won't return for some time, so the task should be done then). Next, comes tasks that have to be done cyclicly, like laundry, provisions, etc. Do it now, do it later, not much diff, but it still has to be done. Then in 3rd, comes everything else...

This 3-tier priority list doesn't hold fast though, because its purpose is to free up time in the future. I will always want to "have free time in the future" by completing tasks now. That way, I'll be ready for anything that might occur, like splendid weather (it snows here OCCASIONALLY, which is why I need to be ready), or maybe a gathering, dinner, etc. So if any of these pop up, they override and take highest priority, and I'll have the time to actually do that. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Who knows what could happen here?

Procrastination, unfortunately is one big demon that could just vapourise any little time that I manage to worm out of a tight schedule. However, there's something interesting about procrastination: While procrastinating on one task, if another task could be done, such that it feels more pleasing than the task being procrastinated on, and if the task being done is of importance (i.e. priority 1 or 2) then productivity is present, and nothing is lost, essentially. This is assuming that there theoretically is enough time to begin with.

So again, my focus ends up on freeing time, and making time for me to take maximum advantage of my life. You might get bored of me talking about time again, for the umpteenth time, but I think you're probably wishing you had more time for yourself as well, aren't you?

07:29 13 Oct 2012
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