Gina Elias | Smart compromise

The Benjamin Franklin Project | Exploring the never-ending time management problem

By Gina Elia 09/28/15 1:16am

Most of us students face the problem of constantly feeling that there is not enough time in the day to get everything done that we need to. Items on people’s to-do list range from routine errands, emails and busywork to classes, homework, research and so on. On top of all of this, we are told to make adequate time for three meals a day, exercise and at least seven to eight hours of sleep a night. And then on top of that, most of us need to also spend time cultivating our relationships with people who make us happy such as family, friends and significant others. How in the world do we fit all of this into 16 or 17 hours of waking time each day? It seems that things have not changed so much since the mid-18th century, when Benjamin Franklin noted that “order” — or in other words, the principle of keeping each task in its particular part of the day — was throughout his life the most difficult of his 13 virtues to uphold.

I formed a daily schedule for myself this week, which focused on daily goals in terms of number of hours it would take to do them, rather than setting exact daily times. For example, one rule I gave myself was that I had to work for at least six hours a day, even if that meant not going to an event I had been planning on. The hardest part was sticking to the sleep schedule I had set out for myself. Eleven p.m., I realized, was kind of early for someone whose friends mostly consist of college students. I was having too much fun to drag myself away when my self-imposed bedtime was drawing near, so I ended up just sleeping in later and doing fewer extra activities the following day to get my six hours in.

I am probably not the only one, however, who compromises on some activities I would like to do for the sake of others. Wharton senior Leah Davidson noted that she feels sleep is the easiest daily activity to cut back on when she needs to. She added that whether or not she chooses to cut back on sleep depends on the nature of what is due the next day — if it is a performance-based activity like an interview, she is more inclined to prioritize getting enough sleep than if it is a problem set that simply needs to be handed in. However, another student, who chose to remain anonymous, said that if anything, they would be more likely to settle for turning in perfunctory work for the sake of getting enough sleep, exercise and food.

The above comments and my own experience hint that it is unrealistic to expect that full-time students can possibly make time for everything in their daily schedule. Some Penn students have coped with this reality by figuring out a way of compromising some of their activities to achieve a sense of balance. This “smart compromising,” as another student who will remain anonymous phrased it, is a more achievable and relatable method of organizing time for those with jam-packed schedules. If exercise is not my thing, for instance, perhaps I could go to the gym only when I really feel I need it, rather than on a daily basis. Or maybe I could go to that huge party I have been looking forward to for ages and submit an average homework, rather than a great one — that one homework will not matter much in the long run. If I absolutely have to pull that all-nighter every once in awhile, I can do it. I just should not make a habit of it. So it is good, generally, to make some kind of plan for how we will spend our day in a way that maximizes what we do in the time we have. If finding the healthy balance of social, healthy and academic activities in our daily schedules means making the idea of compromising some of our to-do list less stigmatized, though, then I say let’s go for it. Here’s to being unashamed, rather than embarrassed, to minimize our effort on some to-do items in order to maximize our benefit from others. Here’s to smart compromise.

GINA ELIA is a graduate student from Hingham, Mass. Her email address is ginaelia@sas.upenn.edu. “The Benjamin Franklin Experiment” appears every other Monday.

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