Jansepar.com

Today, I came across a great article. It’s about how to focus:

http://thinksimplenow.com/happiness/power-of-focused-attention/

The main point of the article is that if you take on too many things at once, you will essentially fail. Maybe not fail at every aspect, but failure in terms of how well you could have done if you did each individual task on its own, giving it your full 100%. That got me thinking, how much is too much for me, and am I past my breaking point?

Lets find out.

I’m going to loosely follow the articles advice and create a series of steps to define what I have on my plate, define the importance, and go from there.

Life Areas

I think the author of the article summarized them well, so I’m going to go with that, with one substitution: Education, Business, Relationships, and Health

Goals

Education

This semester at SFU, I’m taking “four” courses, and I quote because I actually only have three classes, but I’m taking on a project that I consider a fourth class. I’m taking computer networking (CMPT 371), which has its fair share of work with five assignments, two projects, a midterm and a final. I’m also taking Numerical Analysys (MACM 316), which is a required course and is considered the hardest of the degree. And finally, I’m taking Introduction to Italian (ITAL 100), which is going pretty damn fast, and my strong point is definitely not memorizing. I’ve actually been contemplating if I should take it or not, but in the end, I figured I always wanted to take Italian, there are tons of people to help me, and if I do bad then I can just take it again when I come back from Europe (I’ll pick up some Italian when I’m there, hopefully). The project Horatiu and I are working on is a website/iPhone/texting application. I’m classifying it as educational because we are considering it a fourth course so we can actually get it done before Europe. I’ll be talking more about it when we are further into development.

Business

Horatiu and I also have this event called Mobile Monday where we talk about anything to do with Mobile technology. This is a bi-weekly event, and we have presentations and discussion, all over some free pizza! We use this as a chance to meet other students who are interested in mobile technology, and also to bring in some people from the industry to educate myself and whoever wants to attend. Now, as for how I make my money, I’m currently working at SFU in the audio visual department 21 hours a week to pay for my Europe trip, as well as insurance, food, alcohol, etc.

Relationships

I try to do the best I can in this department, although I can get ridiculously busy sometimes. I generally leave Friday/Saturday evenings free of any work/school. Usually I’ll go out to the pub/club with my friends, and just do the typical shit nineteen/twenty year olds do, like getting loaded. Family is pretty important, but it was a much bigger thing when I was younger. My family just doesn’t seem to see each other as much, but its mostly due to the fact that all of the cousins are much older now, and in my family, when you hit sixteen there are no more family get togethers for you (which means no more presents, but when you turn sixteen you’re old enough to get a job, which makes a bunch of cards containing twenty dollar bills seem much more insignificant). In a couple weeks from I’m going on a fishing trip with two of my uncles and two of my cousins, which should be a good time.

This year at SFU, I’ve decided to bring back the SFU Canucks Club. Honestly, there just isn’t enough fun shit at SFU, so I felt like I had to bring this back. And how can we NOT have a Canucks club? Its the ONLY professional sport in this city (well, I guess there is football, but I’m not going to lie, when the Lions won the cup, I really didn’t give a shit). Now, I probably wouldn’t bring it back, but I’ve gotten a lot of support from a bunch of my friends, so I figure it shouldn’t take too much of my time if I delegate tasks properly.

Health

This is definitely going to be the category hurt the most due to how busy I’m going to be, I just know it. Over the summer, since all I did was work I went to the gym quite a bit, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to squeeze much time at all for that this semester. I’ve been playing tennis a lot more lately with Travis, and I hope to keep that up since I know he’s up for it anytime, same goes for my cousin. I’m also planning on joining the Tennis club this year, and actually go once and for all. I’ve also been wanting to start going swimming, but just like the gym, where am I going to find the time? Plus there is the issue of hair, do I really want to spend another $70 to get my back waxed? If you’re reading this and you don’t know who I am, and are thinking “what a tool, real men have hair”, well FYI, I’m Italian and Iranian, so cut me some fucking slack.

Do I have time?

So, this is the real question, do I have time for all this? Just to sum it up for everyone who has A.D.D., I have twenty-one hours of work a week, a full course load, Mobile Monday, Canucks Club, gym and tennis. And that doesn’t include the essential stuff like sleeping, eating, hockey pool, friends/family/women, canucks games, breathing, and of course, eating (I eat a lot). I honestly feel like there is nothing that I need to cut out, but I’m sure that at some point, I’m going to be ridiculously overwhelmed. What does everyone think, should I cut some access fat? I can’t even really tell what part is fat, I feel like my life its more like a Big Mac then a T-Bone steak. The article talks about how focusing on one goal and doing really well at it is much better then having multiple goals and doing a shit job on them all. But I don’t think there is anything I can cut out, and if anyone has a suggestion, I’m more then happy to hear it.