Janet Aronica

It’s the end of spring break for me, and I’m a little terrified of heading back to school for the home stretch.  As usual, I’m doing too much.  These days, whenever somebody asks me to describe myself, I find that I often start with “well, I’m busy.”

Stuff I do this semester:

• Internship (three days/week)
• Waitress (three days/week)
• School (three days/week)
• PRIMA Connections, student run firm (basically two days/week, but I send emails every day)
• Other (look for jobs/internships, blog, workout, social life?, sleep?, laundry?)

You guys know the drill.  College gets crazy like that sometimes, but I’m trying to enjoy it while it lasts and avoid “Crazy Janet Mode” which involves old habits like losing keys, leaving car lights on, losing cell phones, spilling coffee, frizzy hair, studdering, and stress zits.  That’s why I think it’s important to get involved and learn to balance a busy schedule during school.  You have to learn to keep your wits about you when you’re under pressure.  That way, when you are suddenly thrown into the reality of working full-time, it isn’t a shock when you no longer get a daily afternoon nap.

Nevertheless, being an extracurricular junkie can be overwhelming and it requires a mastery of multi-tasking.  Still to date, the best perspective I ever got on multi-tasking came from my Media Writing professor Candace Perkins Bowen at Kent State.  She often talked about her Theory of Rotational Neglect and I still think it’s pure genius.

The theory is this: You can’t get it all done.  There aren’t enough hours in a day.  You won’t completely cross-off your To Do list.  But that’s fine, because it isn’t about getting to the bottom of the list.  It’s about setting priorities and taking care of the most urgent tasks.  You have to sort of surrender to the fact that each day, something won’t get done–it will be neglected.  But as long as it isn’t the same thing that gets neglected over and over and over again, it will get accomplished.  The thing you choose to “put off until tomorrow” has to change each day.  Hence, the neglected piece has to rotate.  In this way, everything will even itself out.  You will be okay.

She was one of my favorite professors.

Until next time (a digital Post-It to myself),

You only live once. Keep the important stuff (family, friends, fun) in your rotation for the rest of the semester.

JNA