- Making Time Count -

I have many strengths, but time management has never been one of them.

At school I was never the kid who had all their homework and assignments up to date, or finished things long before they were due. Oh no, I was more of the "let's leave starting all of this to the very last second and get to a point where I start stressing over whether or not I'll actually even get it finished in time" kind. You'd think doing that a couple of times would make you want to change your ways a bit, but no, no matter how many times I told myself that by the next test, assignment or exam I would be on top of what needed to be done it never changed.
I remember distinctly not even beginning to study for one of my history essays until the hour before I was meant to be writing it...(needless to say that wasn't one of the best marks I've received).



The main reasons I was never great with time management were procrastination and distractions, something I'm sure we can all relate to.

You'd think by now, at 22, I'd have my shit together, right?
Nope, wrong!
I'm as much a procrastinator now as I was in my high school and uni days.
The only difference is now I'm not procrastinating getting things done that would determine marks or grades, oh no, it's far worse.
I'm procrastinating my adult life.

Yes, you read that right. My literal day-to-day life.

Now I will completely confess that I am the queen of getting easily distracted, I won't even try to deny it.
Whether it be starting a seemingly innocent scroll through Instagram or watching a YouTuber's latest vlog (which somehow is only always just the beginning and I find myself somehow onto conspiracy videos, bad X Factor auditions or old Vine compilations), if my attention gets hooked on something, that's it, I'm gone for hours.

At the beginning of this week I told myself that I was going to spend my whole two days off writing. Having been working a lot recently and not having a lot of time for much else, I thought finally with my workload cutting back I'd try to get back into some sort of writing routine, where I wasn't just using my precious day off sleeping all day, but first I wanted to watch just one episode of Gossip Girl while I ate my breakfast and checked my emails.
Well, "one episode" turned into another, which turned into another, and before I knew it I looked out my window and it was pitch black outside.
Oops. Guess there goes my day of writing, but it's ok because there's always tomorrow.
But as you can imagine, the next day, it happened again...kind of.
Instead of becoming too invested in whether Chuck and Blair would bang on her piano again or if Serena was actually buying any of the bullshit coming out of Nate's hot cousin's mouth, I decided to get cracking straight away; I opened up my novel planning tabs, got my planning journals out and was ready to start developing a new idea. Oh but first, a couple of friends tagged me in memes on Facebook so I had better check them, right? And then I got some DMs on Instagram, and oooh my brother sent me a snap for our streak on Snapchat, better reply to that so we don't lose it, and then I had to go back and do a quick Instagram scroll (because I hadn't already done that four times), shit that person didn't like my last post OR view my story well that's them unfollowed, and gotta post a new story so people know I'm alive, oh wait there's an ad for a new game, that looks cool, let's download it and......
Do you see where I'm going here?
D-I-S-T-R-A-C-T-E-D.
So no, while I may not have watched hours of episodes of Gossip Girl, I did get my daily fix of everyone's favourite Upper East Siders, by watching WatchMojo's Top 10 Biggest Plot Holes in Gossip Girl.....mmmhm, sadly you did read that correctly.
And yes, you guessed it, another day wasted on social media distractions and no writing.

When I thought about it more, the more I became annoyed with myself and my current patterning.

Am I doing anything even the tiniest bit productive? No.
Am I doing what I love? Definitely not.
Am I wasting literally days at a time doing absolutely nothing? YUP.

Something I've always known but never really done anything about is that I use social media way too much.

In the early high school days it was all about Facebook. If something big happened during the school day you knew damn well it would be continued and talked about for all to see when you got home via various wall posts, or even better yet, when statuses were updated indirectly mentioning someone and that person saw it creating a full on war of words it..now that was fun!
You never needed to have an actual conversation with anyone to know about their day or what they were doing, you just had to check their Facebook.
Then it was Twitter, which was all the rage during my days as a 16-year-old boyband lover (and no it wasn't One Direction, it was their arch rivals The Wanted ok. I was original).
Creeping up towards the end of school and now into adulthood, Instagram has only gone from strength to strength, where we as a society not only completely waste time on it, but rate our worth on how many likes we're getting or followers we have (you can totally follow me @olivia_thatcher if you haven't already though....).

Now anyone that knows me would know that I love to talk with and be around people. Get me in a conversation and I could be there for hours. If I could go on coffee or brunch dates with my friends, or have people over for dinner and just chat for hours about anything in the world I would be in my element.
But I hate texting and any technological based messaging mediums; they're all so impersonal and hard to read (I mean not literally, but have you ever been really sarcastic over text and someone has taken you completely seriously? Still sorry to that one person that I sarcastically told that they really annoyed me...ooops).
Yet these days, people don't seem to want proper, face to face conversations.

We live in an age where a (clearly prompted) post on your Facebook wall for your birthday has more meaning behind it than a phone call. Or a brunch with friends is full of message alerts, Instagram checks and phones staying next to you at all times, just in case something were to happen and they were to miss it. Or where someone's opinion of you is determined by how many of your pictures they've liked (because if they don't like one they obviously hate you, right?).

Now I'm not saying that this all doesn't apply to me too, because it does. I am definitely known for documenting my day via my Instagram stories or keeping my phone in eyesight at all times, and yes I sometimes view my worth based on how many likes an Instagram post might get, and that's exactly my point.

I don't live in the now, I sure don't make every second of every day count and I put so much worth in numbers and what peoples opinion of me online is.

When so much of my time and day is spent getting swept up in the online world, I lose sight of everything I should be putting effort into and working towards.
When I put my self-value in the hands of my social followers, I'm doing a massive disservice to myself and my mental state.
And when I'm not doing the things that I love, the things that bring me the most happiness in life, I'm not being fair to myself.
I'm not only not living my life to the fullest, I'm literally procrastinating my life.

And why haven't I done anything about it until now?
FOMO.
The fear that I will miss out on a funny post, or a new meme, some "important" news story, a trending Twitter topic or a message and have someone think I'm ignoring them. It's a real thing alright, don't judge me.

But when you put it all into perspective, it really is a ridiculous way to be living your life.
Only I can change my ways and do something about it, so I've decided once and for all, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

I've put together a list of things I want to achieve by the end of the year, and I'm hoping that putting it into words and on a blog will give me the boost I need to actually doing something about it...

• Write: I NEED to write more. It's my escape, and what keeps me sane. As long as I'm expressing myself creatively everything else falls into place. Whether it be blog posts (which will become more regular) or finally finishing my first novel draft, every day I must write something.
• Read: I have so many novels in stacks that have become mere elements of my bedroom decor, just waiting to be devoured. Instead of spending my time before bed scrolling through socials, I'm going to read.
• Delete apps: I am in need of a massive social media cull, and while Instagram still has me under its thumb for now, I think the time has come to finally part ways with my some 29,000+  backed up tweets and my good-old Snapchat account. I also need to get rid of all of the random games that I've downloaded thanks to alluring ads on Instagram (I'm not the only one that does that, right?). So long Panda Pop and HexaBlock puzzles (I am really sad about that last one though because I'm doing so well).
• Learn a language: Ok, this one may take longer than the others, but for years I have wanted to learn to speak Swedish. I know a bit of Italian and French (enough to get me by there anyway), and for some reason Swedish has always been high up on my learning list. And whilst I already know their wedding vows (don't ask, I've watched all three Swedish Royal weddings multiple times ok) I'm going to get right down to basics and work my way up from there.
• Figure out my next step career-wise: Now this one is difficult, because I love my job as a stylist (glorified retail sales assistant),  I adore my friends there and the company I work for, and being able to help people find their perfect outfits. But as it's a casual retail job my hours are all over the place, and I have no permanency or guarantee that my wages will cover what needs to be met. As I live out of home and have bills that need to be paid, my savings are...well...nada. Hopefully I can stay in my current position and maybe get something alongside it, but I'd also love to pursue something in writing, because I don't know if I've mentioned it before but I love to write.
• Plan a holiday: I haven't been on a proper holiday since my week in Fiji in 2014. All my life I've wanted to spend a Summer in Europe, so with more time on my hands, more opportunities to make money and save, Europe 2019? Fingers crossed!
• Get out and see more of Victoria: I moved to Melbourne to start fresh and see and do more, and I guess you can say that this one has already started. Once a week my housemate and I choose a destination and go on a little road trip, where along the way we sing our favourite songs at the top of our lungs and just enjoy being unplugged and exploring for a while. I want to do more of it, and see as much as this beautiful state has to offer.

So there it is, all written out in front of me, and if it gets to the end of the year and I haven't done any of it and am still wasting my time online, well that's just embarrassing isn't it.

And if you're like me and have related to this post in anyway, here's some parting advice:

Put your phone down and start living your life. You've only got one so make it count.