the scarcity of time: Year 3 in NUS Dentistry reflections
Year 3
My year 3 has ended and it’s the time of the year again where i share my reflections on my biggest takeaway from the previous academic year.
In year 3 school started becoming a very huge part of my life, literally, because it consumed a very huge amount of time. I go to school from 8 to 5 or even 6pm every day; I leave home before the sun rises and come back after the sun sets. Additionally, back home there’s still extra work to do; be it homework clinical admin work or even arranging my own clinical schedule.
What I learned from school making me very busy is that time is actually very scarce. Previously, I didn’t understand the full value of time until school started making me very busy. That’s when I understood the opportunity cost of time because the time spent on doing one thing will actually prevent you from doing something else instead. For example, if I had allocated time after school to do work, but I end up spending it on doing something else instead for example watching shows or endlessly scrolling through tiktok. It will actually hinder my work progress and there is no way that I can earn back that time loss to better prepare myself the next day.
Eventually I learned to manage this scarcity of time through these three things one is the 5/25 rule two is avoiding time things and three is trying to be creative with my use of time.
5/25 Rule
Basically the 5–25 rule just means you list down to you what is important to you in life from the most important to the least important and then you focus on the top five most important things that you have to do. Don’t invest your time in the rest until you settle those five.
For me my top five priorities are:
- Family
- My girlfriend
- Sleep
- Dentistry
- Fitness
Having these top five priorities in mind, I actually plan to have most of my actions oriented towards these five priorities and nothing else this naturally brings me on to my next point on avoiding time sinks.
Avoiding time sinks
By dropping everything else that is not in your top five priority list, you naturally should be avoiding activities that waste your time or distract you from your top five priorities.
Creative use of time
My last point would be on the creative use of time. This can be done through the batching of certain activities. For example, I batch my transport and fitness together, by running home after school (sometimes). You can also carve out some time for your friends by inviting the like-minded friends who share the same activities as you. For example, I go to the gym with my friends, within the social distancing limit.
For the final year ahead
As I was editing the video on my reflections, the seniors posted their postings which they’ll be going to after their graduation. Congratulations to them! Meanwhile, it makes me very excited about the final year ahead because it’s one step closer to graduation and at the same time it feels very surreal because it made me realize that time has flown very fast. From these seniors guiding us through orientation, to them graduating. And now even for my batch graduation, is very near it’s kind of like a bittersweet moment because just shows how things have changed and we are moving on to the next phase of life. As much as I’m excited for the final year here I hope I don’t mess it up and let’s just see where this will bring us in the next year.
Conclusion
This is the end of my blog post. I hope that it has helped you better understand the scarcity of time, and perhaps give you some ideas on how to manage it yourself. If you have any questions, leave a comment or find me on my socials. follow (where I am more active as well).
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bobbatov/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bobbatov
Disclaimer: This video represents my views and is totally independent of NUS Dentistry. The term “NUS Dentistry” is solely used for SEO purposes.
