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What To Do When Things Get Too Busy

The past week things have really started to pretty busy here at Kellogg. Starting this week, I’ll have multiple classes every day, team meetings for those classes during the afternoons, board meetings for activities during lunch time and the evenings, and case projects and problem sets due toward the end of the week. And this is all in addition to the chaos that’s about to start taking place when recruiting season begins over the next few weeks. Sounds pretty busy, right?

In spite of how busy things are getting, my lofty goal is to continue to stay on top of everything – class, school activities, social activities, and eventually recruiting – and I suspect that many of my classmates have the same goal. After all, Kellogg is filled with students who have not only done extremely well professionally, but also with people who have been active in their communities outside of work.

One reason students do this well is because many people do take part in activities that combine a number of the things I mentioned above (i.e. academic, professional, social) when possible, such as taking part in professional clubs with friends and having socials and get-togethers with section mates and learning teams, where they can combine building relationships with school and networking. This way students can interact with people from multiple communities they are involved in.

Another reason students do this well is their ability to manage time well and be efficient. That means they devote the right amount of time to the right activities and have just enough time to do everything, rather than taking on too much and getting in over their heads, something business school students consistently do, at least initially.

But no matter how hard most of us try, the typical student says it always feels like there’s not quite enough time to do everything.  And that’s scary since we’re not even at our busiest point of the year yet.

One thing students do to combat this increasing busy-ness is to be more proactive about getting things done early. For some that means to write out lists and checking things off as they are finished.  But for most students this isn’t usually the perfect solution, since it’s pretty easy to break away from your list and get caught up in other activities or just add more activities to the list.

Another thing students do is take on less activities in the beginning. In a recent conversation, one of my classmates said “I don’t want to get involved in many things this early but instead want to focus on school on friends for the first quarter, before choosing what I want to get involved in.”

And there’s also another group of students that take an alternative approach.  Their thought is that when things get really busy, you should consider doing nothing – don’t do any work, close your laptop computer, stop checking your phone, and stop thinking about the day-to-day details of your work – and putting the chaos down for just a few minutes.

To be fair, I don’t literally mean “do nothing.” After all, it’s probably physically impossible not to do some thinking when you’re alone. But in my personal experience, spending time away from the hustle and bustle and instead taking time to reflect, think, and do nothing in terms of work can sometimes be good for you.

Don’t get me wrong,  I do realize that doing this is pretty challenging, given the biggest challenge everyone has in business school is not having enough time. So it seems pretty counterintuitive to spend time doing nothing rather than studying for your upcoming interview, finishing a problem set, or going out with classmates. On the other hand, taking just a few minutes to reflect and organize your thoughts can be useful.

For some, it might just be a good way to relax. And for others it’s a way to think not only about strategies to get everything done for the week but also about your big picture goals in business school.

But be warned. At Kellogg you can’t always expect to have the free time to just do nothing. Instead, you have to set up a meeting time on your calendar to actually do nothing. Otherwise, it is likely that one of your classmates will book an unexpected meeting with you to talk about school work, and you might not find any free time all day.

In sum, Kellogg students should be sure to figure out a way to cut the clutter for just a short period of time each week. I suspect it will not only help us to relax but also to better take advantage of the interesting opportunities Kellogg has to offer. I hope that the strategy works for me.