Kimberly Garay

Professor Roberson

CRN 20095

Business Tech

Time Management and the Meaning of Life Without a Time-Rewind Do-Over

On Earth, we have a limited amount of time. We have to choose how to spend this time

wisely. Determining what is important to us and how we want to spend our time is time

management. Time management is important so we can live both a fulfilling and productive life

rather than an unorganized and meaningless one.

Learning how to manage time is a difficult skill that takes a lot of practice. You must list

your priorities and designate the number of hours or minutes of your day to certain activities if

you want to achieve your goal. Failing to schedule your life and adhere to the schedule you set

for yourself can drive you mad. My own life is an example of that. Because of various

circumstances, I have never lived my life at a pace that I liked and did not accomplish what I

wanted with the time I have been alive. It was maddening, especially since the meaning of my

very existence depended on accomplishing my goals on a timely manner.b

It is frustrating when you cannot spend your time however you want to. I remember

getting headaches and crying from frustration when I would spend all day in a school of

unmotivated students who acted out during class. It did not matter how well behaved I was, I

would have to spend almost eight hours a day for five days a week in an overcrowded and

draining environment doing nothing and feeling bored as horseplay and fights happened around

me. When I attended high school, my situation reversed. Everything felt too fast at a dual-credit
high school, and I felt left behind by my peers. I burned out and spent hours as a drop-out

watching shows and reading books that did not give me joy. My mother got mad at my escapist

tendencies. She told me to hurry up and get my act together. I was almost at a quarter of my life,

and I was running out of time. No long-term employment, education, or private life. Time would

not wait for me. She was right.

There is a genre of fiction common in East Asian comics and animation. It falls under the

“transmigration” genre and is known “time rewind” and “regression” genre. Through magical or

divine means, out downtrodden protagonist who has lived a miserable life and has been taken

advantage by the people around them, gets to restart their life at a certain point after wishing to

be able to have a second chance in their dying moments. Equipped with the knowledge of future

events, they can avoid tragedy and even live a rich and successful life on their second chance.

I always thought that wanting to restart my life with all the knowledge I had was a silly

fantasy only I had. But wanting more time or wishing for all that wasted time ill spent

transverses borders. Millions of depressed youth and middle-aged people who felt crossed by the

world felt the same. It is such a powerful desire that a million-dollar genre of entertainment

thrives from those who wish to project their feelings of hopelessness at the passage of time and

lost opportunity and experience the success of wise time management through these protagonists.

It feels a little pathetic to link the concept of giving our existence meaning with the use of

wise time management with the escapist “transmigration” genre. It is. But it liberated me.

Knowing how so many felt their prime had been in high school, how they mistakenly believed

that being valedictorian and getting into an Ivy League was the only way to prove their worth,

that they should have spoken to their crush in eight grade who never spared them a glance and

dated them was the only way to be romantically fulfilled, that they should have invested in

Bitcoin when they were 14 in the year 2008, that they could be doctors if they had read medial
books and dedicated their entire life to studying medicine since the age of 11, etc. It was crazy!

Crying over spilled milk! Crying over what they can never correct! Over what could have been

but never was. There is no fixing the past. Only living and planning for the future.

In high school, I spent hours having panic attacks and reliving trauma from years ago

instead of working on my assignments. I repeated classes and skipped classes which only put me

even more behind on the track to graduating. Only being able to walk and ride a bus instead of

driving limited my time more. I never got a job because I wanted to study and so I kept putting

this important milestone in an adolescent’s life off into the future. I did not graduate with an

associate degree like my peers. I did not get into my first, second, or third choice of university. I

only got into the backup of my backup choices. And I repeated these mistakes all over again.

Wasting my time. Feeling trapped. Feeling anxious. Feeling like it was too late. That I had

messed up and wishing that there was a restart button like in a video game. But I was wrong.

Instead of fretting over how much time I had lost, I should have cooled down and

reassessed my priorities. Perhaps I was never meant to be Harvard material that would go on to

be Silicon Valley fodder. Perhaps I should be more realistic and come to peace with studying and

having a career at a pace that was achievable with my health and executive function. It was okay

to live mediocre and happily. I should have stopped living for the sake of being productive and

proving my worth only through my academic ability. Realizing how pathetic my ambitions had

been and how ridiculous it was that I thought I had wasted my life because I did not realize those

ambitions helped me move forward in life. It was time to live.

Currently, I work and study part-time. I study two classes online and work at an office

job that requires less than twenty hours of my life a week. I also work as a server for a catering

agency on an on-call basis.

 Mondays and Tuesdays, I work 9 to 5 with an hour lunch in between. I only work 5 hours

on Thursdays. I do my homework Monday evening with a much-needed adrenaline boost that

comes from barely meeting my deadlines. I attend classes weekly on Tuedays from 6 to 9 pm. I

work on the modules I need for my computer applications class on Wednesdays and Fridays so

that I have a free weekend. If I do not work as a waiter during the weekends, I begrudgingly do

house chores. My free time is spent listening to podcasts and reading manga or actual books. A

side effect of having been a hikikomori (a shut-in NEET) for such a long time is that I must

constantly have some entertainment on to distract my mind. I am working on slowly weaning

myself from using my PC and phone for watching or reading entertainment. This is my biggest

barrier to productivity and sleep. That is why I prepare a playlist ready with interesting videos or

podcasts on Youtube. At least I can accomplish some tasks while I listen to them instead of being

completely absorbed staring at a screen. I would say that I have to work on not wasting more

than three hours of my life on my phone. I am slowly decreasing my phone usage by fifteen

minutes every week. I am also working on having hobbies besides my phone to distract my

mind. I try to spend at least thirty minutes a day on these, but I have only amount to around two

hours a week. It is a real work in progress.

I got a job considerably later in my life than others in my family. I will obtain a

certification, not even an associate or bachelor's degree, later than others in my high school.

Reassessing the reality of my life and consolidating that with my abilities in order to reorganize

my life and set my expectations at a pace I could reach them was the best thing I could have

done. I no longer wake up every day and feel paralyzed by the ticking of the clock. Even if I

move at a snail’s pace, I reassure myself that I am managing my time better aiming to excel at

my part-time job and manage a C on both my classes rather than biting off more than I can chew

and feeling burned out.

 In the future, I want to be the kind of person who can write an hourly schedule of their

lives and follow it. The kind of person who can work a full-time job and still have time and

stamina to excel with As in their four semester credit hours classes that are being counted

towards their bachelor's degree. I want to graduate from a university and work a 40-hour full-

time job. But progress is gradual. I cannot rush these things. I will slowly learn to manage my

time, hone my skills, and savor the moment instead of feeling like this time I spend is only a

transitional period until I can prove my worth. I know what is important to me now and when I

want to achieve it. I might fall behind others, but I do not want to fret over “waster” time. I will

only spend it well and learn from my mistakes. What-ifs will no longer torment me. No more

useless endeavors or wishing for time rewinds. I will only think of what I can do and will do.

Life is no longer monotonous. Thanks to the power of effective time management, it is fulfilling

and productive and meaningful.

My apologies. This turned more into a rant about appreciating life rather than an exercise

in linking time management and the skills needed to be productive in everyday life.