Baz Luhrmann says his life is “a circus run like an army,” which might be the perfect amalgam for being a thinker, creator and doer – three requirements for any college student. By conducting oneself in a structured manner, there is time to think, to create and to execute, essentials for surviving on campus.
Whether you like his work or not, this Baz-brilliance captures an important part of my Carpe College! message about time management for college students. You need to keep your regular, daily, walking around life in order as a means of freeing your mind to think big and be creative. Or, as put more elegantly and succinctly in Amy Wallace’s NYT magazine piece, Deep Inside Baz Luhrmann’s Creative Chaos, “external order creates internal possibility.” External order creates internal possibility. That sounds nice. It’s elegant because of the truth contained therein. In Carpe College!, I talk about using a planner so you don’t need to keep your mundane appointments and course assignments organized in your head and how doing so, in turn, frees your mind to think about bigger and better things. I suggest that college students develop their own EMO (Effectiveness M.O.) that can involve any combination of electronic calendars, white boards, post-it notes or school-supplied planners. Luhrmann takes this to the nth degree with his “nine huge calendars tacked to a white wall,” but the point is that he’s developed an EMO that works for him. That is, it affords him the time and space he needs to think and create and execute.
I like Luhrmann’s style in this regard, and it’s best illustrated by his underpants. Yes, underpants! According to the Wallace piece, he has nearly identical closets in Sydney and New York and gets frustrated if he must wonder ‘Where are the underpants? They’re supposed to be in Drawer No. 6.” A similar approach applies to his bathrooms. “As I’m going through the routine, I don’t have to think,” he said, adding that this leaves more room for creativity. ‘The mind is unlocking something.” What he really means by “I don’t have to think” is that he gets to think about the things he wants to think about, not “Where is the underwear?”*
While Luhrmann’s approach may appear to venture into OCD-land, it clearly works for him. And any college student can find an Effectiveness M.O. that works, as well. Now that we are into the second half of the school year, most first-year students should be well on their way to fine-tuning an approach that works. By June it should be a system that’s been tested and proven, one that provides comfort and confidence coming out of their first year that they can handle what’s to come for the rest of their college career.
And… they should be able to find their underwear.
* This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from my Latin teachers: “Semper ubi sub ubi.” (Always wear underwear – LOOSELY translated**)