Everyone always says you need to learn the skill of time management (if you haven't already mastered it) by the time you get to college and that if you haven't learned it already, college is the perfect time to do so. Since graduating, I'm finding it more important than ever before to be good at managing my time. The bad part is...I'm not doing so well at it. In college, you have breaks between classes, evenings, when you're supposed to be sleeping, weekends, and the morning before class to get any school work done that you put off or haven't gotten done. If you've had a job during college, you're probably getting pretty darn good at managing your time.
I can honestly say since graduating, it's harder than ever to manage my time. I knew when I graduated that I had a job using my degree, but I wasn't really prepared for what that meant. I was definitely used to being busy and cramming things that needed done into the small time frames I had during the school year. I had an internship and was taking summer classes in addition to doing 10 hours of work study a week during the summer '10 semester. I barely managed that. My La Roche days were Monday and Wednesday from 7:30 to 5 and it was a 45 minute commute from home (each way). My internship days were Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 8:30 to 5:30 or 6 with a commute varying from 40 minutes to almost 2 hours sometimes each way. In addition, I had massive amounts of homework. There's something to be said for finding ways to get things done when you're busy. All through college I had worked hard to keep myself busy and constantly learning. Thus, I ended up having very little free time. Now that I work Monday through Friday, 8-5 with only a half hour commute, I have from 6pm-11pm free as well as the entirety of the weekend. Of course, I have things I need to do like cleaning my room and other small organizational tasks. I have things I want to do like reading and teaching myself more things that will help me keep on top of new happenings in my industry (graphic design). There are also the things I just want to do for fun like play Super Mario Brothers for Wii, hang out with my friends from college, and take walks with my dog. I'm not sure why, but it feels like work lasts all day. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE my job, but it does take away all my daylight hours during the day. I also know I need to go to bed by 12 at the absolute latest if I'm going to be worth anything the next day at work (especially because it's a creative job, which can be mentally taxing at times). Unfortunately, I'm still at the point where I wake up in time to get ready for work and not do anything else, leave for work, work till 5, come home, eat dinner, and sit around all evening. If I try to meet up with people after work, even if I get home at a decent hour, I'm exhausted when I get home and into the next day. As of right now, weekends are spent out and about at least half the time because it's summer and there are many activities to do. As a result, I have a bunch of small things I need to catch up on and I never end up leaving time for them! I would say time management is hands down the biggest adjustment from college to the real world. Well...that and maintaining relationships and friends from college, which I will get into more next week.
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