Head Tale

After going to class today on three hours of sleep, I thought it might be interesting to break down what a typical day is like for me.   Of course, no day is “typical” and how my time breaks down will likely be quite different when compared to any other student as well. 

3 hours – Class
Classes are three hours long and everybody has their own strategies for how to make this balance out over the week.  I'm a big fan of trying to have one class per day so that I don't burn myself out on any one day but always in “school mode” during the entire week.  Some people prefer to have 2 (or even 3) classes in a day so that they have other days off during the week (especially useful for those commuting to save on gas costs.)  Obviously, planning it so you can get a Friday or a Monday off is even better so that you can get away for a long weekend when you're not as busy or if you travel to another “home base” besides London on weekends. 

3-5 hours – Assignments, Reading
Again, people have different strategies on how to handle this.  Some people try to do all their work during the week so that they have weekends (relatively) free.  (These are the people who spend 12 hours at school some days and you don't want to make any sudden movements around.)  Because I have no part-time job, few social obligations outside of library school and no family here (obviously Shea's here but no kids is what I mean.  Plus Shea often works on weekends and nights so sometimes we can't spend time together then, even if we would like to.)  So anyhow, what this means is that I can balance out my workload by doing a lot on the weekends which makes my weekdays a bit less hectic but means I'm constantly in school mode with a rare day where I'm off completely. 

1-2 hours – E-mail
I get more e-mail here than I've ever got in my life.  Lots of school-related messages, lots from classmates, lots on our class listserv (ebbs and flows but heavier than I ever thought it would be when I set it up), a few other mailing lists I belong to need to be kept on top of, updates from friends near and far, random inquiries from people on all manner of things – from people wanting tips about library school to submissions for my guitar tabulature site.  This doesn't work for everyone but I make an effor to at least scan every message I receive.  I usually make an immediate decision at that time about whether to file the message, trash it or leave it in the in-box for future handling.  I then go back to what's left in the in-box when I have bigger blocks of time available to catch up on everything that's there but not pressing.

4-6 hours – Internet (and TV & Movies to a much lesser extent)
I don't know why but I'm sort of embarrassed about admitting this (and may be a bit low with my estimate as well?)  On the flip side, I have watched probably 1 movie per month on average since getting here (when I used to watch 2-3 per week) and I rarely watch TV anymore (though I often have it on in the background.)  My Internet use is fairly evenly split between direct and indirect school-related stuff (everything from research for assignments to reading librarian blogs) and non-school stuff (reading favourite web sites like MetaFilter, various non-librarian blogs, checking out sites linked from places like Kottke, Boing Boing, Digg, etc.)

1-2 hours – Neccessities

– eating, showering, grooming fit in this catch-all category although if you know me, you know that “grooming” is more optional than necessary somedays. 

4-10 hours – Sleep
– this can really range depending on what assignments are due.  I've
talked to a lot of students who've discovered naps as a great way to
keep balance, even when they aren't getting a full eight hours a
night.  I'd say that I don't get 8 hours on average myself, maybe 6?

1-2 hours – “Outside World” Stuff
I do get out to restaurants, pubs, shopping, the library on occasion as well – maybe that averages out to 1-2 hours to per day?

So what's that add up to?  18-30 hours.  Obviously, I only have 24 hours a day so these numbers adjust accordingly depending on various factors (and sleep is the most likely to suffer on the days when I have 30 hours worth of stuff to do.)  At the same time, some of these items overlap (Internet time/homework time) and some things can involve multi-tasking (I do a lot of my weekly reading assignments in the tub or on the bus.)  Am I missing anything?  Probably but that's a rough idea anyhow.

Classmate of the Day: Lindsay for suggesting I try the flavoured coffee option at Tim Horton's today during Management Class.  Delicious!