Busy Little Bees
3:27 A.M.
Just finished typing up the notes from my internship meeting and outlined goals to be reached by the next conference. I realize I should go back over the notes for the two tests I have tomorrow, but I need to prepare my draft for my Ad Team presentation on Tuesday. Not to mention this post is long over due. After a deep breath and a drag from my Red Bull I prepare myself for another sleepless night.
Sound familiar? If you’re a fellow millennial I’m sure we could compare notes. Here is a snap shot of my responsibilities:
1. As a full-time student at Texas Tech, I have taken anywhere from fifteen to eighteen credits a semester and have participated in summer school every single summer of my college career. I spend roughly twenty-five hours a week going to school, studying for tests and working on homework.
2. I have three internships that require 45-50 hours a week.
3. I am the design editor at Daily Toreador Newspaper, which requires about twenty hours a week.
4. I serve as AE for a National Student Advertising Competition Team, which takes at least fifteen hours a week.
5. I write for The Next Great Generation for at least three hours a week.
In a seven-day week with 24-hour days there are 168 hours. I spend about 110 of those hours doing work. That leaves me about sixty hours to take care of the rest of my life.
In plain speak: I’M BUSY! Not to mention I am recently engaged and planning my wedding, actively searching for a job–feel free to forward any job opportunities if you’re in HR–and maintaining what limited social life I have (this occurs occasionally on Fridays and Saturdays). I pull all-nighters once or twice a week, and that’s just to keep up; it gets really crazy around finals time. Seriously, I should stock in Red Bull. With my purchasing habits I know this stock will not soon plummet.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining; I love absolutely everything I do. I participate in all of the activities only because I know that I am able to complete all tasks that are assigned to me to their fullest potential. Some people ask me how I have free time, it’s simple: multitasking! If I’m in class and the professor is late, I work on something else. When driving around town doing errands for my internship, I place all the phone calls I need to make during the day. During informal meetings I bring my dinner. Basically I’ll do what it takes to take care of all of my responsibilities and keep my sanity intact. There may be a few times I’ve changed for work in the car or inhaled dinner to make it to my meeting on time, but superior time management skills help me take care of business.
This situation isn’t unique, most of my friends are super humans like myself. They work several jobs, volunteer, rush for sororities and fraternities, participate in internships and various other activities. If you’re a millennial in college I’d bet that your schedule is just as crazy as mine, if not more so. I think it would be most accurate to call our generation a group of overachievers and I consider it to be a huge privilege to be apart of such an active generation.
I think @addy_dren said it best, “It seems like we fit 48h of activities into 24h.” Amen sister.
Do you have a crazy schedule? Share it in the comments. Do you have great strategies on how to accomplish everything? Share them.
Photo Credit: hiyori13
Kyla,
Most college students have busy lives doing all kinds of internships, being members of organizations and clubs, working to pay their tuition, etc. Some of it we have to do it and that is it. But for other things we choose to get involved and then we complain we have no social life during the week. I really do not know why we do it. I really think we are over-achievers and try to do everything we want here and now because maybe tomorrow we won't have the chance.
I've taken 18-19 credits every semester of my college career. I have 3.5 jobs (yes one of them is 0.5). I am a member of 100000 student organizations and, honestly, I love it! Do I complain that sometimes I sleep 2-3 hours a night, like in the past few days? Yes! But I will keep doing everything because I love it.
I don't think the busy schedule is only for college kids. Most of my friends are working Millennials and they constantly take upon new projects at work without being assigned to them. They work well over 40 hours a week and they volunteer for different organizations.
Maybe we need to feel helpful. Maybe we are over-achievers. Maybe we have too many options. Maybe we have too much energy.
Maybe I'm the exception to the Millennial-rule, but I for one, am a big fan of single-tasking. I'm not saying I'm always successful at it, but I like to focus on a single task at a time, and I find I'm far more effective that way. I check e-mails at pre-determined times during the day. I batch phone calls. I avoid others when seriously working. I know the pace the world runs at, and I see the pace most people are running at to keep up, but personally, the whole multi-tasking thing isn't for me. Maybe I'm just not good at it, but it's never been an efficient use of my time. I'm also a big fan of cutting out the non-essentials (I despise meetings with more than 4 people present).
That being said, I have a full-time job (and I won't count the hours I put in, but suffice to say that it's a number far bigger than 40), maintain two blogs, write for a couple of other websites, write a webcomic, travel back and forth to the US about every 3 weeks, do side-work for a non-profit, and make sure to spend time with family and friends. Is that a lot? Maybe, but if I didn't enjoy it all, I wouldn't do it, and it's a hell of a lot better than wasting away in front of countless hours of reality TV.
It sounds like both of you have a lot on your plate, even if you handle your tasks by different means. It's nice to hear that someone isn't running around like crazy to get it all done. After I graduate I'm sure my schedule will more closely resemble yours Adam…Hopefully.
Wow, I feel your pain. I am working on three different assignments tonight while taking down a Red Bull. I work 20-30 hours a week as a server at Applebee's to help pay my rent. I go to class and study for about 25 hours a week (I also have taken 14 credits during the summer). I am President of Advertising Club, which takes another 5-10 hours a week. I am Director of the Promotions and Public Relations Team for the National Student Advertising Competition that requires about 10 hours a week. I recently received an internship that will begin in May, but before that I was spending an average of 5 hours a week researching internships and companies. And to top it off I have a boyfriend that lives 7 hours away so I talk to him about 7 hours a week on the phone and see him every other week which cuts into my work and school time.
You are busier than I am and I commend you for keeping everything together. I often feel like all the balls I have in the air will fall and bury me. Time management is definitely the key! Without my calendar I would be utterly lost and my nerves would be frazzled 24/7.
Good luck with your job search, although, judging from all of your current endeavors, I don't think you'll need it.
2 things:
1 – I remember when I was in high school and middle school and all the kids would brag about how little sleep they got. I see some of that being reflected here in the comments… “You got 5 hours? Oh yeah well I only got 3 hours of sleep!” There's a sense of pride in being busier than someone else. Psychologically, I have no idea where that comes from, but maybe it's worth looking into.
2 – I have a compulsive need to multi-task. I took a class in college (worst class ever) about Psychology of the Self or something like that… and the big project was to change something about yourself. I tried for a whole semester to stop multi-tasking while doing homework, in an effort to be more efficient. Not only did I not get my work done faster, but I was MISERABLE. I physically cannot sit alone in silence and do one task at a time. Is that true for other people in this generation?