Recognize, analyze, prioritize

With finals approaching like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, everyone’s running low on time, energy and patience.

The flexibility provided by many classes offered at IU also furnishes my opportunity to learn the most important college lesson: how to prioritize.

What needs to be done? How much time will it take? How much time do you have? What needs to be cut?

Prioritizing for the sake of efficiency and success is a lifelong professional necessity. The superfluous gets axed to free up calendar space for what’s essential in any workplace. We cannot live productive lives without deciding what matters and leaving the rest behind.

Imagine my anxiety and frustration when a professor this week began class by reminding us all of the course’s attendance policy: “If you miss a class, you must hand in a written response to the reading when you return. Miss more than four classes, and your grade will suffer!”

At the risk of sounding self-centered, ain’t nobody got time for that.

While I understand professors may believe their attendance rules are a blessing in disguise for the slackers who’d drop out if someone weren’t making them show, in reality they’re simply a hindrance to students with so much on their plates that something’s gotta give, especially at this time of the year.

When I find myself drowning in assignments, there are two classes in which I feel comfortable enough to miss a day if there simply isn’t enough time to complete an task. If I feel like passing up a class will just set me back and create more work, I go. Simple as that.

Perhaps I’m disillusioned, but operating this way feels more like managing my time wisely than slacking. Besides, if I want to fail, isn’t that technically my prerogative?

By the time we get to college, we should be responsible enough to recognize education’s importance, go to class when we need to go and work when we need to work.

This is where we truly begin making those life-defining decisions that make the college experience so essential. Blowing off academics and failing out is a choice. So is making the Dean’s List.

The fact of the matter is that classes without attendance policies demonstrate efficiency at its finest.

I realize that in the real world, we’ll all eventually have to attend mind-numbing conferences and pointless team-building activities. The expectation that professional life will be without its time-wasters is admittedly unrealistic, but the trick to regaining those lost hours still lies in an astute sense of urgency and the ability to fry big fish first.

Each career comes with a set of tasks coupled with an ebb and flow workload that will require a firm understanding of how to effectively finish what matters and skip what doesn’t.

As we all stare down term papers, final projects and exams, the freedom to spend each day’s hours where they’re most needed would be invaluable.

Start the clock.

­— sbkissel@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah_.