Mr. Baxter, my AP U.S. History teacher in high school, used to preach this all the time–make the task fit the time. I absolutely hated it. In fact, I hated the saying so much that the word “hate” itself wasn’t sufficient enough to describe my hate–I mega-loathed his saying. He would give his students a 50-page in-class reading assignment and denied them from taking the assignments home to finish. Oh, and he tested on that reading material–of course. When his students, myself included, complained about not having enough time, Mr. Baxter would respond with, “make the task fit the time.” It didn’t make any sense. Time should be appropriately allotted in order to fit the needs of the task, not the other way around!
As soon as I entered college, I quickly realized that I simply did not have enough time to do everything. Academically, this became a huge problem in reading-intensive classes, as I often fell behind and couldn’t keep up with so much reading. As my grades slowly dipped, so did my motivation. My perfectionist alter-ego could not handle not reading every word of all of my reading assignments and catching every single detail–but I became desperate. So I did what I previously thought was despicable–I skimmed (gasp!). And to my chagrin, I realized the value in Mr. Baxter’s (and my mega-loathed) saying–I had to make the task fit the time.
Estimating how much time a task will take isn’t difficult–assessing how to manage the given amount of time in order complete the task is. Implicit in a college education is learning how to improve our time management skills and ultimately increase efficiency. Adjustments will be required–I went from reading every word to skimming whilst maintaining a good grade. And as we gradually transform our study habits to fit the needs and demands of a college education, it’s important to realize how valuable our skill of efficiency will be out in the “real world.” Just as my mega-loathing quote of Mr. Baxter went, we must make the task fit the time.
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