Learning. Life.

The possibilities of a brand new year

Posted on 25 January 2008

I love the start of a new school year. Shiny new textbooks; clean, blank notebooks, and lovely pens to fill them with. The anticipation of new things to learn, new people to meet. A whole year ahead with no mistakes in it yet.

I also find a new school year a good time to set up new living habits. I’ve been away for 6 weeks, so the old habits are broken. I have a month before things get busy again, so I have the mindspace to build new ones, and the time to think about how I’d like my days to work.

My first task when the holidays are over is to plan how this year is going to work for me. I make a list of all the upcoming projects I’d like to work on, and all the regular tasks that I do. I sort out my timetable and identify assessment due dates, then plan around that to block out time for the other things – preparing for classes, marking, research and so on. I work out what time I want to arrive and leave each day, and what I need to do to make that happen. For example I have two 8 o’clock classes this semester, so have to get up at 6am (urgh). I’ve decided to schedule myself 8 o’clock “classes” for the other days too – an hour where I work on my research – so I just get up at 6am every day. That also means I can leave earlier, when I have more energy to work on personal projects or have some fun.

In upcoming posts I will look at how to set some goals for the year, and plan the time to work on then. Until then – how do you want your days to work this year?