Beads of sweat dripping down my cheek, I worked endlessly towards packing, throwing clothes from the closet to the bed, bed to suitcase, jamming papers into folders, filling all possible 23 kg (because I must switch conversion systems), all while dehydration sets in. This is all just a day before I set off for the big adventure. Why delay and pack just a day before with all dat sweat?
I’m spontaneous and crazy like most college students…okay that was my first reaction as well. The real answer comes from a bit of wisdom (spell-checking this word as I type) called the Parkinson’s law, introduced to me by podcaster and Angel investor Tim Ferriss in his book Four-Hour Work Week. To summarize the law, it states that activities and will take up the amount of time you give them. For example, if you give yourself an hour to eat dinner, you will finish in an hour; however, if you give yourself twenty minutes to eat the same amount of food, then you will eat it in twenty minutes. Sounds simple, but is it really this easy? Of course, this is all just a theory and is not practical for everything. Finishing a delicious and filling meal in twenty minutes would leave much to be desired. However, for certain things this might be advantageous, whether it be folding clothes, trying to finish emails or that simple college paper. Even if the initial goal of finishing all your emails in fifteen minutes instead of thirty minutes is not reached by going five minutes over, finishing the emails in twenty minutes is still better than thirty minutes. Sounds simple BUT give it a try.
In terms of packing for the adventure, the time I allowed to pack the bags was full of hectic packing, clothes flying all over. The trade-off of course is the stress involved and the chance of missing something. As I sit here in the airport before my flight, I realized that I did forget my neck pillow which will of course make a twelve-hour flight from Los Angeles to the destination a bit uncomfortable. I do know it’s my fault for speeding through the packing to save a few hours or a day, but in my mind this was worth more than a neck pillow and slightly less uncomfortable flight. Update: Nothing else is missing so far, but we will see what else might be missing when winter comes…
Oh, and that big adventure and arrival point I’ve blatantly ignored so far? Well that is a semester studying abroad in the magical city of Vienna, Austria. Specifically, I’ll be studying piano performance through the IES study abroad program partnered with my home university-Indiana University. Follow me the next four months as I go on this adventure and share random or somewhat well more structured thoughts and experiences-Bis Bald!
Thoughts with David 