Oprah Winfrey famously said, “You can have it all. Just not all at once.” You may be able to do it all as well, but again, not all at once. Just use our 12 Days of Time Management for Teens:
Single-thread
Our brains are wondrous machines, capable of phenomenal feats of cognition, recognition, and synthesis. Yet, our wetware lacks some standard features found in modern hardware. Your computer, tablet, or even phone might be able to run multiple processes in parallel without loss of function, but you probably cannot.
Obviously, we unconsciously regulate a slew of autonomic functions while processing and filtering a flood of sensory data. But as far as tasks that require focus are concerned, we run on single-processors.
In computer programming parlance, single-threading is the processing of one command at a time. Embrace the concept of single-threading rather than multitasking. Multitasking makes us a little dumber than we normally are, whereas single-threading just seems smart.
The 12 Days of Time Management for Teens is inspired by and draws liberally from Etienne Garbugli’s excellent Slideshare presentation, 26 Time Management Hacks I Wish I’d Known at 20. Obviously, we think this advice is valuable even for students younger than 20!
Mike Bergin