This week’s blog post is on something that I feel I’ve mastered–time management.  Throughout my entire life I’ve been involved in organized activities and since middle school have had the same schedule. I woke up at 6:15, had breakfast, practiced the piano and saxophone before school, went to school school, came home and did homework and then went out for my activity or had practice right after school, had dinner, and did more work. I kept to that schedule religiously and in college, I was able to keep my schedule very similar. Track practice for us starts anywhere between 2:30 and 3 depending on the day so I scheduled all my classes for the mornings and keep to my routine, minus waking up that early to play my instruments.

During this Covid era, as part of the Penn State track and field team and B1G, we Covid test three times a week and my designated slot is at 7 am. The word we’ve heard a lot this past week  has been “flexibility”. We were shut down temporarily as a program because of the surge of Covid cases on the team. We weren’t able to attend our would-be first travel meet last weekend and missed out on a week of organized training. We Covid tested four times this past week, doing both nasal swabs and spit tests at different locations on campus. Our testing times were shifted three times within twenty minutes on some days because of impending inclement weather and we were asked to be patient, wait for further direction with no real sense of our team’s standing, and thanked for our flexibility.

While I pride myself on having mastered time management, flexibility is not something that I have under my belt. As a very schedule-orientated and plan-based person, this past week of living in uncertainty about the future of our season, what we have to do and when, and not having full control over my schedule was something that I struggled with. The only way I was able to have this flexibility was because it was enforced, and I always prepare. I complete all my assignments immediately after they are assigned and never procrastinate. It personally gives me peace of mind to be able to check things off of my homework to-do list. I always work ahead, not necessarily so that when situations like this happen I’ll be prepared, but because it was the way I was raised.

My parents held many governing principles when raising my sister and me. There was and is really no room for error. Their expectations are high but so is their support. Life is structured, there is a schedule, and it is all necessary to prepare ourselves for the day, week, month, year, future. I grew up extremely accustomed to order and even with independence in college, I try to keep an orderly life.  To me, time management is more than setting aside time to study for something or designating a time slot to get work done. Time management is the way that I govern my life and is about living everyday in a uniform, admittedly boring and sometimes mundane, manner to prioritize time for everything that I find important to accomplish. The unpredictability of this week team-wise only proved to me the value of time management, as I was able to navigate all the “flexibility” I needed to have without concern over the loss of time needed to complete work. It was simply a disruption to my schedule that I was able to rework. I find that living this way has many benefits, such that when friends want to do something spontaneous I have everything else in order and feel comfortable going out and enjoying myself. Sticking to a schedule means that I do revolve my hangouts around meals, homework time, and practice, but it also provides me with a lot of freedom down the road and a sense of security in what I really want to do. I feel that mastering time management is more beneficial than not and honestly is a lot easier than many believe!