Study on Time Management to be Completed after 1 Hour Lunch Break
A treatise on the finer points of tedious organizational skills by Michael Seaholm
In a recent nationwide survey, students indicated that one of the skills they felt they needed most for college besides the ability to shoot lasers out from their eyes was the skill of time management. Whether it is to find a way to party with your friends the weekend before the big test or just to be a complete nerd by organizing your every waking minute, the art of time management has helped students determine what order they should do things so that their most important subjects are crammed into the last possible time slot and they can continue trying to drink their own weight in beer. This article will explore the various facets of time management and how scientists have harnessed its power to destroy cities. No, wait, that’s uranium. Nevertheless, this will be an interesting discussion.
The concept of time management was first developed so that people could seem like they were much busier than they actually were. Consider for a moment this list of daily tasks for the average medieval man:
*Survive.
*Kill people indiscriminately because of religious differences.
*Invent FebrezeTM.
As you can see, this list is fairly short and is filled with largely indistinct, unattainable goals. For instance, there is no one in the history of the world that has managed to survive much more than a century, excluding the supercentenarians of Bible fame. However, any progress whatsoever in any of the listed items means that that day was a smashing success. This tradition has carried over to the infamous “assignment notebooks” that were handed out in high school and never, ever used. As a result, many of these notebooks have been given away as bedding for the homeless.
To illustrate how time management works, allow me to relate to you a brief anecdote. Last weekend, I was faced with having to read a chapter of economics, a chapter of computer science, and a few passages of Spanish. It was a triple threat, like William Shatner. To make matters worse, I discovered a fairly addictive game on the Internet called Moonsweeper, in which you are a moon man who destroys other moon men. To keep things as vague as humanly possible, I usually refer to it as the moon man game. Anyway, I was forced to choose between starting on my computer science and reading about different types of main memory (ROM, RAM, SPAM, flash dance, and robot) or blasting moon men. With the magic of time management, I was able to take responsibility and play the moon man game for the better part of an hour. Then, when it was least convenient, I read enough of the assigned reading to learn that computers have something called main memory. Then, I blasted more moon men.
As chilling as this cautionary tale was, it still illustrates my point that time management is important, so much so that I am willing to show you all how to properly manage your time for a nominal fee. Just send it in a small, nondescript envelope and send it to my address. Just a reminder: I do not open mail that does not refer to me as Michael “Holla Back” Seaholm. And yes, you can trust me with your money, as evidenced by the Certificate of Honesty hanging on the wall in my dorm, which reads, “I AM A PROFESSIONAL NOTARY AND HAVE BEEN ACCOSTED BY A CRAZY PERSON DEMANDING THAT I WRITE HIM THIS CERTIFICATE OF HONESTY. THEN HE STUFFED ME IN AN OLD REFRIDGERATOR. IF YOU ARE READING THIS, PLEASE CALL THE POLICE.”
Now, in order to create a list of things to do on a daily basis and start managing your time, you need some sort of writing utensil. This can be a pen or pencil, but if you can’t find one then you can just eat some spare ribs and then use your sauce-stained fingers to mark things down. Paper is also necessary for this process. If you have a life-threatening allergy, then a paper substitute (soy being the most popular, or perhaps a more natural substance like bark, leaves, chipmunks, etc.) can be used. Now, simply write down the various things you need to do today and rank them in order from least to most important. Then – and this is important – you must finish each task in a completely random manner that turns out to be highly counterproductive. If you’re really smart, however, you will put “create list” as your first entry and be done with time management for the rest of the day. Then, it’s back to the moon with you.