Well here is my comeback to make my days run smoother. The thing is, I can't go to the lab or have a big event every day. My laboratory is a bit crazy in that the people are super passionate and work 80 hour weeks. However, that puts pressure on me to put in hours as well. I know I like my research but at the moment I don't know if that will be my career. Hence, it is not the #1 priority and I need to learn to balance it with other things in my life. I need that 1 day of the week when I can just stay at home and recharge, study, prepare for next week. I know that it might seem like staying at home for that one day is a waste, but if it will allow me to keep my head clear and stop making mistakes then that's worth it.
During that day I can:
- Catch up on sleep
- See my family
- Go for a long relaxing run
- Cut up all my veggies/ cook my beans/ pack up stuff for the week ahead
- Take care of my hygiene- nails, moisturize, oatmeal face masks...
- Catch up with school readings
- Make a to do list plan for the week
- Honestly... watch a bit of TV or read a book
- Keep up with my blog
- Breathe!
Also, I need a quick morning routine. The thing with the Toronto area is that the weather changes on the daily basis so it's hard to pick out what you're going to wear. For example, it was about 10C on Tuesday, 0C on Friday, 18C on Sunday... you get the point. Hence, my closets needs to contain all sorts of clothing. I think it would be worth it to organize my closet based on "weather" and lock away my summer clothing (I can probably start on that right now). Then, I'm always uber hungry in the mornings and start rummaging the fridge. Might be worth it to keep an apple or so by my bed to consume once I get up. I pack my breakfast for the bus ride ahead of time so that's useful and just make sure that my stuff is packed the night prior. By being prepared, I could squeeze in morning runs into my schedule.
Night time I need to be quick with coming home, having dinner, and taking a short break before going back to studying. This is generally my checking up on blogs time and when I consume my daily allowance of veggies. Maybe try having my beans/ other protein source ready ahead of time and keep all my salad veggies in one place. Honestly, eating raw saves so much cooking time :P I think that spending 5 minutes on making dinner (my grandma cooks me food as well that's why it's so short) and the next 25 minutes on eating it is optimal. Then it's study time.
Any quick routine tips that work for you guys?
I try to streamline my morning by doing as much as possible the night before - make my breakfast, pack my lunch, check the weather and pick out my outfit (Pittsburgh's weather is just as finicky). That way, I'm less likely to forget things.
ReplyDeleteDoing things the night before is the way to go and I completely love your whole "clean for 10 minutes while coffee brews" idea! Things get uber messy in my house just because there're so many people living there. I also keep a little box with almonds and a granola bar in my backpack at all times- prevents me from buying food or being hungry if I stay late.
ReplyDeleteYou are remindng me of how I had to stay in at least one night out of the weekend to feel on top of stuff, rather than going out and partying with people.
ReplyDeleteMy only time-saving advice really is to beware of too much multitasking, I try to do too many things at once and either end up doing nothing well, or creating a mess that takes more time in the long run...
For sure! I once made a mistake in the lab that I literally copy/pasted something wrong and I was behind a couple of day's of work because of it. That's what happens when you multitask so much :( So yeah... it generally ends up costing you even more time :(
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