Still Not Growing Up

Today on campus there was an information session put on by the toy
company Hasbro, as well as a meeting for graduate students in the
Management school who wish to put on a Cultural Festival. Cultural
Festivals remind me of the good 'ol days of high school, when I have
fond memories of trying to learn how to make 20 gallons of Soup from
somebodys mother's recipe in Portugese (Or was it Italian?) My
experience has been that cultural festivals, on the whole, tend to be
more fun to put on than effective at actually promoting awareness or
transmitting real knowledge about a foreign country. Having said
that, though, when I heard that the MBA Students were going to try to
put one on, I immediately signed up. I want to be part of the mess
and fun and confusion of trying to find that one deli in the city
that knows how to butcher whole Llamas and roast them over an open
pit, and that one little shop that can create a sari for that poor
man who has to play a woman in the festive dancing.

I should have foreseen what would happen when you put one of these
meetings immediately after a toy company info session. Somebody would
inevitably bring toys, and the silliness inherent in the whole
cultural festival ordeal would grow into some ridiculous hallway
antics. Today, it resulted in 8 MBAs in full suits playing soccer in
the hallway with one of those little hairy rubber band balls. It was
especially funny when some of the girls jumped in and started playing
in high heels, and the boys began re-enacting soccer heroes of old
(well, the World Cup). I tried to participate, but I had just
returned from working out at the gym and wasn't quite up to a rousing
game of hall-soccer.

If only students would come with a real ball next week. Then the
mayhem could really get going!

The First Day of School, and Yoga

Yesterday was the first day of classes, and unlike most other first days, the two professors just passed out the syllabi and dived right into class. A number of times during class I had little things that I should look into pop into mind, and so to keep everything captured for GTD I jotted them down on a notepad. The first day of class was otherwise uneventful, and much like any other day of school.

After classes ended I went home, changed, and hurried over to the gym for a Yoga class. Since the gym is free this week, this doesn't count toward my 29 workouts. I suppose I should explain that logic: Since a single day pass to the gym costs $5, the membership only saves money if you go more than 28 times. I'm too stubborn to pay extra for something if I have to, so 'paying off' the membership will get me going regularly. However, when the gym is free, then I'm not 'paying off' anything, because I could have gotten in free anyway.

Today wass the more traditional "first day of class" with funky class times and special lectures, etc.
We started out having the fear of god put in us by the career services department, with the looming internship search growing nearer, they took the opportunity to reiterate some of the tools that were available and strategies that we should be using. After this course we had an online 'ethics in situations' training, where we had to balance the need to meet business expectations and the need to fit ethical requirements. After that, we had another lecture about the ethics of marketing to kids, and then we were free for the day. Now I'm going to start preparing for tomorrow's classes, because I want to keep on top of my work. Hopefully things will pan out and I can continue to stay on top of things for the rest of the seven weeks.

Getting Things Done

My life for the past week or so has consisted of implementing Getting
Things Done to keep track of stuff in my life (again), worrying
about/ preparing for the first day of school, and trying to actually
follow through on a "New Year's Resolution" - to work out at the gym
at least 29 times this semester.

First I should explain why I'm trying to implement Getting Things
Done. I have grown tired, as a student, of losing syllabi, forgetting
about commitments, and then suddenly having everything come rushing
back to bite me during finals week (or on a break). It seems to me
that once school starts, every extracurricular or 'Important Thing'
that doesn't involve homework or a quiz is completely forgotten.
Chinese gets rustier. Exercise and eating habits both go in the wrong
directions. Communication with family and friends dries up. Preparing
for life in the real world gets ignored. The end result, of course,
is not what you'd expect: If only all that time went to studying!
Rather, I find myself entering a boom-and-bust cycle of productivity,
where down time gets occupied by surfing the web or watching movies.

I got sufficiently fed up with this last semester to consider a
couple of radical ideas: Training myself to operate on minimal
amounts of sleep, for example, or completely forgoing all leisure and
social time. However, reality eventually set in and I realized that
the problem was not how much time I had, but what I was choosing to
do with that time. I was being reactive, and not proactive. So I got
my hands on things to help me achieve my goals of turning myself
around: David Allen's Getting Things Done, Stephen Covey's 7 Habits
of Highly Effective People. I realized what my problem is: I am not
consistently taking the steps needed to meet my long term goals. This
stems from two causes: I imagine things to be impossibly hard, and
get paralyzed by a fear of failure. Even when I am not paralyzed, I
am not sure of what steps I can take. So, as a result, nothing happens.

I find Covey's work inspirational, but for me the bigger problem
seems to be to keep my eyes on my goal and 'not looking down.' The
way I've chosen to handle that is by implementing the Getting Things
Done methodology, and slavishly following it for the next 7 weeks. I
realized all of this on Saturday, during the long drive back to
Boston. Sunday, I had friends in town, but Monday was dedicated
entirely to getting things set up for a GTD semester. I was worried
that I wouldn't have the time, energy, or ability to implement the
whole process in one day, but I got through it all just fine. Now I
have a small mountain of To-Dos to fill up any free time that I may
have.

Next Semester's Courses

Corporate Finance

Topics: Supply Chain Management

Investments

E-Commerce

Modeling/Decision Analysis

Operations Management

Managing In Global Environment

Mgmt Prac II: Acting/Org

Grades

Mgmt Pract I:Prof Perspectives	Pass
Accounting	B+
Managing People/Organizations	B+
Economics	B+
Statistics	B
Strategic Analysis	B+
Financial Management	A-
Info Technology/Management	A-
Marketing	B