My program is philosophy, and I've just finished my first semester. Well, sort of. For one of my three classes I had to take a grade of Incomplete because I just couldn't find the time to finish a long paper. I worked pretty hard core, although having other papers to write limited the time I had to work on it. But the reason I took the incomplete was because I was pretty puzzled as to how to make a decent, focused argument on my chosen topic. Now I've taken the paper home and am sort of drawing it out over the winter break, procrastinating and having a pretty low average of motivation to work on it.

I've been wondering about several things lately.

Is it a normal part of being young and inexperienced in my field that I had to take an incomplete? Is it a sign of bad time management? Would I have been less compelled to take the incomplete if my professor wasn't so detail-oriented or strict on grading?

I've also been worrying a lot lately about whether I am a workaholic--it seems that this semester I've had a severe limit on the amount of time I have for social relationships and exercise that will keep me healthy or happy. It seems like I'm neglecting my family or my need for rest or vacation time over this holiday break. I worry that I'll never have time to meet anyone with which to start a relationship, or that even if I do, it'll turn out to be disastrous at some point as a result of workaholic tendencies on my part. I'm wondering whether this is a result of the philosophy profession itself, or graduate school in philosophy, or graduate school of any kind. Or is it some aspect of my personality or attitudes which I can change or need to change? Would anyone predict, based on experiences familiar to them, that my difficulties with managing my time in my program will begin to decrease after I spend a bit more time in grad school?