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Day 12 (1/22)

I was fortunate enough to not be sick on the last day of the Ben Franklin Experiment. But in the morning, that did not stop me from waking up at 11:30. I ate breakfast and relaxed for about an hour, because luckily there was no one home. After that, I got some work done but stopped after about 45 minutes, even though I knew I would have more to do later in the day. But because I was finally well enough (and awake enough) to exercise, I made that a priority. I ran on the treadmill and did dumbbell lifts, totaling about an hour and 15 minutes of exercising. Later in the day, I relaxed and went back to doing a lot of work as I had to study for my history test in the morning. It was the last day of the Ben Franklin experiment, and again, there are a lot of lessons to be learned although I did not actually do it perfectly. What is important is that while doing it, I was cognitive of what I needed to do and what my priorities were. However, it is important to mention that there were days that did the experiment perfectly. Without writing a 200 word blog post every day, I am still going to be keeping this experiment up by trying to complete all of my virtues each and every day.

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Day 11 (1/21)

Well, as it turns out, the Ben Franklin Experiment does not work too well when you are sick. I excelled at one of my virtues, sleep, in which I got many hours of. By the time I finally woke up, I did some homework (I guess fulfilling the work virtue) and then took another nap. I did some more homework and then FaceTimed with my friend for about 45 minutes. I also did not eat much, so in some type of way that is similar to exercise (but not really). I went to bed early, with a lot of my homework for Monday already done. Saturday was a weird exception to the Ben Franklin Experiment, as it was physically impossible to complete some of the virtues. As I wrap this experiment up, I have realized a few things. One: the idea of the 5 virtues, or the things in my life that are important to me, has been drilled into my mind. So now going forward, I know what 5 things I need to make sure are on my schedule, wherever that may be. Another thing is now I realize how difficult it is to have a balanced schedule. I know that in the future, I have to do a better job really figuring out what that schedule may be, and if I don’t figure it out, I will not get frustrated because I have first hand experience trying to manage it by myself.

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Day 10

Fridays can be the best, but also the worst days. I say the worst because I am the most tired as a result of all the combined sleep I lost during the week. It is also the best because I have nothing due the next day, and it is also the beginning of a weekend. So on Friday, I really wasn’t feeling well (no, it had nothing to do with the Inauguration). Even in English class I could tell I was not feeling right. So when I got home, I turned on the news to watch the inaugural parade for a minute and a half, but after that I took a nap for a good three hours. Still not feeling well, when I woke up around 7:30 I ate dinner and watched the inaugural ball with my parents. I know that on Friday I basically completed two virtues alone (sleep and family time) but I think that was justified because of my physical health. But at the same time, I was annoyed because I could not hang out with any of my friends, and Friday’s are basically the only days where I can do that. The more I do this experiment, the more I realize just how difficult it is to keep a perfect balance in my life between my 5 virtues.

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Day 9

After a long day at school, I took about an directly after it to relax. I watched TV and rested to de-stress myself. Honestly, although I only did it for about 45 minutes, having those made a great difference. But right after that, it was back to work. I did not have too much to do (surprisingly) so I got a lot done until I stopped at around 5:30. Since it was my dad’s birthday, we went out to eat for a good two hours. It was nice to do this (not only because I got a break from doing homework) but also because it was nice spending time with family. It is one of the virtues that I listed, but it is the most vital in a sense that it is the one I do the least. In other words, sleep and homework are my first priorities, but since I frequently do them the most, they are the least vital. After that, I got back to doing homework, of course. I finished early, and therefore went to bed early. Although I did not exercise, I feel that yesterday was a great example of doing this experiment successfully. I balanced my time between “work” and “play”. If I can continue to do this, I believe I will feel better (I get more sleep) and therefore will do better in school.

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Day 8

In terms of getting things done, yesterday was much better than the last. When I came home I got some homework done. However, that actually resulted in a problem because I did it in my bed. I suppose it is natural become even more sleepy when you are warm under your comforter. Before I knew it, I was fast asleep and when I checked my phone, it was 7:00. This is the exact reason why I am sitting at my desk typing this, and the rest of my homework. I got right back to my homework, and ate dinner. Since I desperately needed to get my Spanish grade up, I prioritized that over everything else and studied for a good hour and a half. Unfortunately, because I was in my room for the entire afternoon and night, I did not spend much time with my family or friends. By the time I went to bed it was 11:30, which is late but preferable over the 12:30 bedtimes I have been experiencing the past couple of nights. Another thing I did not get yesterday was exercise, which I really need to begin. When midterms and my big Model UN conference (which takes place the two same days as midterms) are over, I am going to begin playing tennis once or twice a week for 2 hours. For now, I am heavily prioritizing school work.

4:30 pm EST

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Day 7

School was back in session yesterday, so my weekday schedule resumed. Unfortunately, I had stayed up so late on my research paper on Sunday night, that I had not yet studied for my Spanish Oral Exam. This is exactly why I woke up at 5:25 yesterday, therefore getting a good 4 and a half hours of sleep. So naturally, coming home after a day of school, I was absolutely exhausted and took a nap until 6. I didn’t think I had that much homework, so by the time I ate dinner and showered, it was 7. At 7:30 Melia, Kaity and I all had to work on our poem analysis essay, which unfortunately took much longer than expected, as we were done at 11:50. Doing the Benjamin Franklin experiment, this is exactly what I had wanted to avoid. However, I do have to take into account that out of the three of us, not everybody was able to work at the same time. Also, there was no way to plan ahead of time how much difficulty we had on it. At the same time, I do not work on difficult group projects like this everyday, so if this happens once per week I cannot complain. Yesterday,  I would’ve loved to get some exercise in, but unfortunately right after school my body collapsed just looking at the treadmill.

4:14 pm EST

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Day 6

After 2 days of sleep, exercise, relaxation, and family time, I knew Monday was the time to get to work, especially for my research paper, which was due Monday. Basically, I spent the majority of the day doing that. Going through all the citations took me longer than expected, so I was up extremely late doing it. This is precisely the problem I want to solve by doing this assignment. I am tired of being tired because I was up late doing my homework. I think one of the reasons I have this problem in the first place is because I get distracted kind of easily. If my phone is right next to me, I usually feel the urge to go on Snapchat, Twitter, or YouTube. I think I should get in the habit of turning off my phone completely, and possibly putting it in a different room. Also, I need to get in a “working” mindset. In other words, I need to just crank out the work without breaks, and I can do this by telling myself exactly how long I will be working on whatever I am doing as a source of motivation. Honestly, I think this is the key to time management. If I can get my work done quickly, there is no reason for me to be going to bed late, as I can use whatever time I have left over to exercise or, of course, sleep!

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Day 5

(This did not get posted from yesterday, annoyingly so I am writing this again.)

The second day of the three day weekend went by far too quickly. I woke up late again, getting even more sleep, so hopefully on Tuesday I won’t be so tired: even though that is dubious. After that, I spent a lot of time with my family. We went out to lunch, and although we spent time together on Saturday, it was nice to do so again Sunday. Those are two of my favorite virtues, sleep and family time. They are also the two I probably get the least amount of during school weeks so whenever I get a chance to on a weekend, I do them. But when I came home, reality hit me. That History research paper was still unfinished on my laptop. I attempted to write it, but then I started feeling the burn out. I was tired of writing, especially about the same topic. I was tired of doing majors and minors or CPR: all I wanted to do was relax. To save myself from going crazy, I did not push myself on Sunday to do much work. I exercised, instead. I also sat in my living room for the first time in a month and watched some brainless cooking show. This, I guess, was desire to fulfill my relaxation virtue kicking in, and boy was it strong.

5:59 am EST

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Day 4

Ah, the three day weekend. Coming only second to spicy salmon sushi rolls, it is one the happiest things in my life, mostly because I get to sleep. I slept until 10:30 yesterday morning, and it was so refreshing. But right after that I reminded myself that I have an 8-10 page research paper due on Tuesday, so I needed to get right to that. In all, I probably spent a good three hours working on it yesterday. I also watched TV (relaxation) and exercised, fulfilling two of my other virtues. Another nice thing about the weekend is that everyone in my family is home and not at work. We got to eat lunch together, which again was really nice because we do not usually do those types of things. At night, my parents went out so they paid me to babysit my youngest sister. During that time, I just relaxed and did some more work. I think that for Sunday, I need to do a better job managing my time, because on Saturday I spent a lot of it just going on the internet, wasting hours of time. Also, I feel that I should revise the weekend schedule that I had made for myself. I cannot spend two hours in the morning just doing work, as I get too bored or distracted. I will see what Sunday and Monday bring but for now, I am dubious over whether I’ll be able to follow it.

1:48 pm EST

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Day 3

I am doing this now because on Friday it completely slipped my mind. Luckily, I do remember what I did. But anyways, Friday was sort of a weird day. It isn’t exactly part of my weekend schedule, but at the same time it is not the same as a weekday. I decided on Friday that I would take a break from work. Having these breaks really helps fulfill the “relaxation virtue”. I know, I know, it is really important to me, but I think it is always good to take breaks so that I don’t burn out really quickly. When I got home from school, I was exhausted from the week, so I took a 2 and a half hour nap. This obviously fulfills my “sleep virtue”. Since I don’t get all the sleep that I would like to during the week, it was good to make it up on a Friday. I walked on the treadmill as well, which I know is not "real exercise”, but nonetheless, I moved my legs. At night, I hung out with some friends, which is another thing I do not get to do much during the week. Another thing that I should probably mention is that since the new year just began, I have been going on a bit of a health kick. I have not eaten dairy or gluten for about a week now. It has not changed my schedule much, but I definitely feel better as a result and hope I can continue in the future.

1:04 pm EST

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Day 2

New day, new me. Literally. Today, I almost fully followed the steps of the Ben Franklin Experiment. I got all my homework done (in record time); exercised (though not exactly on schedule, I still got it done); and went to my friend’s house to work on a long term project. I actually really enjoyed doing following the schedule. I feel that the largest advantage is doing homework right after school as I am not completely tired yet, and I won’t have to worry about it later at night. Also, by doing earlier in the afternoon, should I ever come across an assignment that I realize will actually take me longer than anticipated, I have the time to do it.  I also feel that having a structured afternoon/night helps with sleep greatly. Writing this post is the last thing I have to do for the night, and it is right now, almost 11. In my world, this is refreshingly early. Getting more sleep was pretty much my number one goal for this assignment, and if doing my homework and exercising earlier will help me accomplish it, than let it be. The only fault I am finding in this project is trying to map out the time I will spend with my family. My siblings usually have after-school activities and since my parents come home late, it is hard to find a time that we can actually all sit down together. However, this is tentative. Usually I don’t know what time my sisters or my parents will be in the house, so it would be hard to specifically list when I should be with them. As the weekend approaches, this is something to think about.

10:57 pm EST

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Day 1

So day one happened. It did not go as planned. Up until 3:45, everything was fine. I went to school, then came home and relaxed with no problem. But as I was doing my homework (in my bed-- bad idea), my eyelids became heavy and it was hard to concentrate. Because I didn’t really see any other way out of it, I took a “quick” nap. I guess I was really, REALLY tired so I slept until 5:40. I realized the problem right away. I had gone to bed late every other day, so my tiredness carried over to yesterday. Should I have been following the Ben Franklin schedule, I would’ve gone to bed at 10:30. After 5:40, it all rolled downhill from there. I did not have much time to exercise, and since I was basically still groggy from my sleep, I only walked on the treadmill.The more energy from the Ben Franklin Sleeping Schedule that I will hopefully get directly correlates with the exercise I end up doing. More sleep, more exercise: it really is that simple. 

Also, I need to manage my schedule for homework better. If I know what material needs to be done/studied then I should estimate the time it will take and schedule that out. This will prevent me from getting to bed at 12:00 and waking up early (as I am now) to finish studying.

6:15 am EST

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Steps 1 and 2

To me, virtues in my life are things that I wake up everyday and hoping to fulfill. 

1) The biggest virtue for me is sleep. Although I have absolutely no scientific evidence to back it up, I honestly believe I am a naturally tired person, and function worse than other people if I did not get enough sleep. On average, I probably get 5 hr 55 min per night. When making my schedule for the weekends, I will make sure to build in a lot of time in the mornings for me to catch up on sleep.

2) Naturally, something that I need to complete everyday is my work. I do get very anxious about grades, so I always like to get things done, and get them done well. I spend a lot of hours doing it every afternoon, so expect that will take up most of my time.

3) Another thing that is very important to me is exercise. I am hoping to be a starter for the varsity tennis team next year, so I try to run/walk on the treadmill the days I am not actually playing. Beyond that, I sit in classrooms all day so of course, it is vital for me to move my legs when I get home.

4) Spending time with my family, of course is something I need to consider. Since I never see them in the mornings and spend a lot of time with my homework, I have very little time to see them. 

5) Something that I always want but rarely have is leisure. This would include hanging out with my friends, watching a movie, or really something that doesn’t require much brain power. Hopefully, by adjusting to a new schedule I can build in more time to do this.

Weekday Schedule:

6:00-6:30--> Wakeup

6:31-7:05--> Get ready for school (hair, breakfast, etc.)

7:30-3:00--> School

3:00-3:45--> Relax

3:45-5:20--> Homework

5:20-6:20 --> Exercise

6:20-6:50--> Dinner

6:50-8:45--> Homework

8:45-9:00-->Shower

9:00-9:45-->Spend time w/family

9:45-10:20-->Remaining homework (this blog) or more relaxation time

10:20--> Sleep

Weekend

10:30-11:30--> Wakeup

11:30-12:30--> Relax or spend time with family

12:30-2:30--> Homework

3:30-5:30--> Go out with family or friends (shopping, movie)

6:00-11:30--> Hang out with friends

12:00--> Sleep (do a blog post)

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4:13 EST