This week has been pretty crazy. I stayed up till 5:15 am to write an essay for my philosophy course on Wednesday. I actually could have handed it in as late as Sunday, but I knew if I didn’t hand it in on Wednesday (during my last philosophy lecture), I would procrastinate it till Sunday, and waste a lot of the time I could have spent preparing for my upcoming Queen’s interview (which is a week from tomorrow).

I just had my last class of first semester yesterday, and our exam period started today and runs until March 3 (because of the strike). Fortunately, I only have one exam on the 28th, and because I aced my tests during the semester, an 80+ on the exam secures me an A+ in the course – which is really good for me considering that my interview is on the 27th, and so I won’t have to care too much about being ridiculously ready for the exam.

So while I will spend maybe an hour or two a day leading up to the exam, most of my time will be spent getting into interview mode for Queen’s.

Pretty much I have a bunch of interview questions/areas that I am reflecting on, and jotting down notes on my ideas. I’m not trying to memorize answers to interview questions, as much as I am trying to get my ideas hammered down and my approach to the questions becoming second nature – so that no matter what I’m asked, I will be able to produce a solid answer.

I also need to spend some time going over medical ethics/professionalism, as well as reviewing Canada’s health care system and issues related to that. I might also spend some time catching up on current events because I am pretty awful when it comes to stuff like that =)

One of the concepts I wanted to touch a bit on today is prioritizing. I think it’s something that I do particularly well, and something that I think a lot of perfectionists tend to struggle with.

For example, I would rather spend 100% of my time preparing for an interview and 0% studying for an upcoming exam if I knew I needed to all of my time on the interview preparation to even have a shot at getting in (that’s an exaggeration, but you get the point). I know a lot of perfectionists who struggle with the possibility at not succeeding at everything they do, so they would end up spending 50% of their time preparing for the interview, and 50% studying, essentially keeping the dream of acing both alive. However, in some cases, you might then end up falling short at both.

Sure it’s possible to do both well – I’m sure some people have the work ethic and drive to do it. Personally, I don’t. I know where my limits are in terms of work ethic. If I need to fail at something to maximize my chances at succeeding at something I think is way more important, I will definitely do it.

It’s all about prioritizing, and recognizing what’s really important to you. Sometimes you just can’t do everything well.