Time is a strange, finicky thing. Time is a one-way route with no way of turning back. Therefore, time is precious to those of us who wish to live our lives to the fullest. And this is especially no exception to anime fans with a myriad of anime series begging to weave their stories and pander to us. So how does one manage time efficiently with anime and real life? Kai from deluscar has proposed and invited me to join the Anime Time Management project, which is great timing for me to explain my current situation.
As a college student, you might think I have plenty of free time, would you not? On the contrary, as I am an honor student and working as a student mentor and leader, these responsibilities have brought more work to my schedule. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I attend classes normally in the morning, lead a TA’s session in late afternoon, and work on homework or lesson plans at night. Tuesdays and Thursdays are filled up with classes from morning to late night. Friday night and weekends are the only free times I have, and I spend most of it on anime or my hobbies. So all in all, I’d say that about 20% of my average week is spent on anime or hobbies, which I shall call anime time for convenience’s sake. Although this doesn’t seem much, real life does takes priority.
A big hurdle in managing my anime time is that I have my style of watching anime. For me, I take great care to consider my mood and atmosphere for watching anime. Often not, I sometimes goes to great length to wait for the perfect time to watch anime. But lately, I’ve resorted to watching anime more often at inopportune times because of my hectic schedule, which means that I’ve violated and temporarily suspended my policy of “a time for every anime series.” This may impact my enjoyment of watching anime, but as long as I can keep up with what everyone’s talking or tweeting about, it’s merely a small price to pay.
And then there’s the whole file-hosting legal situation online. Well, let’s just say that I can’t afford to download torrents on campus and with file hosts being strangled and limited, it’s getting tougher and time-consuming to be able to find fansubs and download a series episode. That’s one wrench in my plans. Blogging is another time-consuming activity as well for obvious reasons, but I won’t let this get me down at all. I’ve endured tougher situations, and like my deafness, I’ll not let time get the best of me!
Slowly, but surely, I’m starting to get a handle of my new-paced schedule 1 month after the start of the new semester. But at the end of a long busy day, it’s still always nice to just wind down and enjoy anime at your own pace. And presently, I’m just simply living my life to the fullest and the best I can in real life and online in the anime community.
Ephemeral Dreams 
Pingback: Kai’s Anime Time Management « deluscar
Seems like you’re busiest on Tuesday and Thursday, lol. I had experiences of working till late night so I can certainly feel your struggles D: But it’s good that you had more time on your hands during weekends. I need to work even on Saturdays, well, half-day.. but still.. D:
And yes! I don’t like torrents too. Their download speeds are too random and unstable for me to be able to fit into my time schedule. If it were fileserve or megapload, I will be able to download them instantaneously (I can finish downloading an episode in around 30-40 mins) so watching new anime episodes are easier.
Tuesdays and Thursdays feels like Mondays to me, ahaha.
I’ve had pretty good experience with torrents, and I prefer using them when I’m at home. But as I don’t want to risk downloading torrents on campus, I’ve resorted to file-hosts. One great thing about living on campus is that the Internet speed is faster, thus I was quite surprised when an episode finished downloading in 10-15 minutes. This was much faster than when I tried file-hosts at home. ^_^
Pingback: OG’s Anime Time Management (Pffft) « The G-Empire
“I’m just simply living my life to the fullest and the best I can in real life and online in the anime community.”
Well, it looks like someone has mastered the secret to success in life. :3
I can relate to the difficulty of managing college and a hobby like aniblogging. I’m not a TA, so I’m not nearly as busy as you are, but I still find myself spending a large amount of time studying or working on various assignments which leaves little time in the day for watching anime, let alone blogging it. There has also been a number of times when i get to the end of the day and I just don’t want to watch anything because I’m too tired even though I do have the time for it. It can be discouraging at times, but I’m trying to keep a positive attitude on life even when I spend time on any of my hobbies.
I can relate to this most definitely! Though I prefer to think of it as a reward for being patient and making it through the week before finally diving into the spoils over the weekend. ^_^
Pingback: Yerocha’s Anime Time Management « Shades of Grey
Pingback: Time management Ace style « Ace Railgun
Hang in there with your hectic schedule! School flies by so quickly, so enjoy it while you can.
I didn’t even think about how difficult it might become for students on campus with the current issues in file sharing sites. Is there a reason why you can’t torrent on campus? When you say you can’t “afford” it, do you mean the school’s penalties for torrenting, or something else? I never had an issue torrenting anime on campus when I was an undergrad, but your school may have a stricter set up. Do you ever watch anime on Crunchyroll or Nico Nico?
I don’t download torrents on campus, because I feel it would be risky using up a lot of bandwidth as it would slow down the system and violate the rules. The university did take action against some people in the past, so I don’t want to risk it. I rarely watch Crunchyroll because I’ve had bad experiences with them in the past, but I think I might take another look at it and also Nico Nico.
Right now, I’m doing well enough with both my schedule and the whole downloading process. I’ll live. ^_^
Depending on your university, sometimes they only monitor out-bound traffic and less so inbound. If that’s the case, you might consider IRC with its direct downloads (XDCC). As far as they would know, it would be like downloading a file from a website (but through a different port).
Thanks for the advice. I’ll consider it. ^_^
With regards to file-hosting and bittorrent not being good options, why not try IRC? Almost every fansub group is on IRC so you can get whatever you want.
Ah, yes. I’ve explored IRC before, so I should take a look at that as well. I’ve forgotten how to use IRC, so I guess I’ll need to learn it again. ^_^
I used to work when I was in university too, not as TA but an IT related job. It was really tough to juggle these that’s why it never crossed my mind to blog. So props to you for handling school, work, and anime hobby–something that I failed to do or explore.
Also, I think you’re doing a good job, keep up the good work.
I started blogging in my first year of college, so I had more free time back then compared to now. Circumstances have changed, and it would be fruitless to stop blogging just because my schedule has changed. I’ve explored my options, and now, I think I’ve found a good steady flow. ^_^
Thanks, and I’ll keep up the good work!
Pingback: 毎日アニメ夢 » Anime time management
Pingback: The Seven Tyrannies that Crush Anime Fandom | Canne's anime review blog
Pingback: Nightcore- One Way Ticket » NightCored