In case I have not said this enough, I am going to say this one last time. My final semester of grad school starts on Monday. This weekend I will be planning my last semester. I will be figuring out my schedule and my tentative plans for how I will balance work, writing my thesis, my personal life, my last two classes, and my rediscovered passion for writing and reading fiction.
Every semester, I have been more excited than the last, except for this one. There could be any number of reasons. I think the combination of the following:
- having little idea of what I will do post graduation,
- not knowing if I need to be in Belgium or if we can stay in Italy longer,
- being trapped in a pandemic,
- lack of social interaction,
- grey winters,
- needing a longer break.
I am sure it is some mix of all of the above, although I do not know the exact formula.
How I am Planning for Uncertainty
Usually, I look up all my class syllabi and set up a reading schedule for the semester. I never stick to this, but it’s nice to have dreams. This semester, I am still deciding between two courses. This adds another variable, although a small one in all my uncertainty and planning.
Since I am facing so much uncertainty and doing something that allows me to feel like I have some control over my situation, I decided to plan my last semesester dynamically. I am entering each of my variables into my planning framework so when some of them become clearer, I will be able to further refine my plans.
My variables for the semester, thus far, are:
- where we are going to live next month and beyond,
- finding a job,
- what my second class will be,
- the amount of work my honors programs—yes, plural—will require.
What I am Using to Plan my Last Semester
I have two formats I love for planning, Excel and writing on paper. I love Excel because I can turn complex formulas into a transformative, auto-tracking machine after a twenty minutes to two hours of setup depending on the complexity of what I am tracking. I know there are better systems out there, but this is what I had to work with at my first job. It has stuck with me ever since.
On the other hand, I love writing things on paper because there is a special satisfaction that come with physically crossing something off your to do list or even making notes around plans.
I usually use them for the purposes I described. I use Excel to track my longer, stable projects or projects with multiple deadlines. I use a minimal bullet journal for my daily agenda, weekly habit tracking, and tracking the habit of writing even though I track the content in excel.
Since my current semester has so many variables, I decided to plan for the first time in Miro. Probably a bit extra. But I wanted to use it to track my notes for different fieldwork and writing projects, and it occurred to me that my semester planning could fit in here as well.
How I am Planning My Last Semester
I did this strange thing today: I woke up at 5 am. I followed my ideal morning routine, almost to the letter.
- cleaned up the kitchen,
- made and drank a matcha latte,
- 20 minutes of journaling,
- read my daily section from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday,
- studied Italian,
- 1 hour of writing my book,
- took Igneous out to play,
- finished two courses on Coursera,
- read.
All of this was before lunch. Everything up until finishing the courses on Coursera was before 9 am. I realized if I could turn this into a routine, I could wake up between 5 and 6, go through my morning routine of cleaning, journaling, working on my thesis for an hour, reading for my classes, then taking Igneous out all by 9, I would be ready to start working. I could work until 5:30 or 6 and then have the next 3 hours to spend with Jesse making dinner, taking Ig for a walk, exercising, reading, watching something, or even go out if that is ever allowed again.
Sure, this all sounds crazy. But that is working and being a student. Finding the time to do both. Do I recommend this to anyone? No. But we’re giving it a try. I will be working on this tomorrow and will post an update when I figure out what it looks like.
Who knows? Maybe this will turn into the way I finish writing a book someday.