Let me explain.

My mind has the power to make or break me.

In my teens, going up to bat was my favorite part of softball practice. It felt so cathartic to swing the bat, hit the ball, and watch it go. As I got better at batting, my coach started giving me more opportunities to play during games. It should have been a real confidence booster, but my mind wasn’t having it. I would consistently crack under pressure, strike out, and let my team down. Eventually I was benched entirely.

I knew had a lot of work to do. In addition to tackling my (painfully obvious) issues, I developed strategies to trick my self-sabotaging mind into excelling and succeeding in spite of itself.

The opportunity to practice these mind games first presented itself in school. Though most of my education has taken place in Singapore, I spent three years of upper primary in the US public school system. The transition back to Singapore for secondary school was very tough for me in terms of academic rigor, lifestyle, workload, expectations, etc. I found myself overwhelmed, out of depth, confused, and sleeping less to get all my assignments done.

To survive, I had to figure out ways to work within systems I had little control over. So I started with the basics. This is what I knew about myself:

1)   Stress was not my friend;

2)   I was more effective when tasks were spread out rather than crammed together in a tight deadline;

3)   I enjoyed working on multiple things at the same time (not to be confused with multi-tasking).

Within these perimeters, I started my personal  time management experiment.

I began developing strategies to give myself breathing room while completing tasks/assignments/projects and enjoy the process of doing it. I would plan backwards once I knew my deadlines, break down my work into smaller steps, give myself motivational rewards, and always schedule more time than I think I needed to complete a task (these strategies and more will be discussed in later posts). These are practices I still depend on today.

While pursuing my undergraduate degree in Canada, these methods enabled me to excel academically, work part-time, volunteer, lead teams, plan events for a student club, travel, and put a small photography/poetry book together, while having (what I would consider) a very healthy social life. It was so effective that I started helping people around me manage their time if they felt overwhelmed in a new school system with a new course load.

These first time management ‘consultations’ went something like this – “Let’s meet up. I can help you plan your schedule to meet your deadlines and in exchange, you can buy me lunch.” I  found these meetings extremely enjoyable and at the same time rewarding as I was able to mix my three favourite activities – meeting new people, enabling their potential and being a control freak.

Since then, I’ve formalised this service and have worked with a range of people from students to creative professionals to retirees. I listen to each person’s specific challenges, goals and needs and collaboratively customise solutions that are in line with their character and lifestyle. My goal for myself and for others is to be in the flow and not to go against it.

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” – Maya Angelou

This is a constant journey and I am still learning as I go along – with what I do know, I use it to enable the potential in others.

– Joy

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