How to Prioritize Time at School

Disclaimer: The content of this article represents my opinion based on personal experience in school. That aside, coming to the realization explored below genuinely increased my quality of life and helped me land a job I'm passionate about.

Regardless of whether or not you read on, I recommend listening to this lecture by the great Dr. Randy Pausch. Some of his material is dated, but the talk is timeless.

In his lecture, Dr. Pausch speaks about Covey's 4 quadrants. If you're not familiar, the 4 quadrants include tasks that are:

1. Important and due soon

2. Important and not due soon

3. Not important and due soon

4. Not important and not due soon

Everyone understands that the 1st and 4th quadrants are easy to rank in terms of how to check things off your to-do list. Where people differ is the 2nd and 3rd quadrants. The majority of people will prioritize tasks that aren't important and due soon over items that are important and not due soon. Dr. Pausch argues that tasks in quadrants 3 and 4 just shouldn't be done. This is how successful students and professionals are able to do so much in the same 24 hours as everyone else. If it's genuinely not important, don't do it.

Working on something that isn't important defies logic. Perhaps this is why so many CEOs like Elon Musk don't value college the way you might expect, nor did they necessarily perform well in school. For those practicing this mindset, serious dedication is reserved for the things that really matter to them and for which they go all out. With that in mind, it can be dangerous to focus on doing things right. Rather, Dr. Pausch argues that you should focus on doing the right things. It's much better to try your best and fail at doing something important than to try your best and succeed at something unimportant.

This took me a long time to learn for myself as I spent hours and hours studying material that bored me to death while chasing a 4.0 GPA. As Dr. Pausch says, "Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment." Chasing a GPA was my bad judgment. I made a transition about halfway through pharmacy school into a prioritized mindset that ranked specific courses, research, extracurricular activities, and personal growth above my performance in courses that held no interest for me. I was much happier this way and started to really excel in the topics I cared about. That change can help you stand out from the rest when you're chasing a job.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't go to class or fail the ones that bore you. My goal was to be somewhat competent in all my courses. Just don't let trying to be good at everything prevent you from being great at what matters most.