Finishing My Homework

Back in elementary school, my parents would always tell me to finish my homework first.

Want to play video games? Finish your homework first.

Want to go outside? Finish your homework first.

Want to watch TV? Finish your homework first.

Throughout my engineering degree, I’d try apply the pareto principle of doing 20% of the work that gets me 80% of the marks. Semester after semester I learned that there isn’t a pareto distribution for an engineering workload. That’s what makes it challenging. Instead of optimizing my time I get buried in work as each chapter, each assignment, builds off of the knowledge of the previous one.

I learned that I can’t productivity porn my way out of this. There is no shortcut. The only thing I can do is stay focused, stay disciplined, and do my homework first. Then I’ll have time left over spending it however I like.