Time Management: Plan Ahead and Prioritise
Time Management: Plan Ahead and Prioritise
Time Management: Plan Ahead and Prioritise
The Learning Centre http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au Good time management is essential to success at university. Planning your time allows you to spread your work over a session, avoid a traffic jam of work, and cope with study stress. Studying at uni often involves meeting conflicting deadlines, and unless you plan ahead, youll find it impossible to manage. To meet the demands of study you need to spread your workload over a session. Work out what needs to be done and when. Work out how to use your available time as efficiently as possible.
Long-Term Planning
Using a Yearly Planner
A yearly planner you can place on your wall or by your desk allows you to plan your workload over an entire session and helps to remind you about deadlines and upcoming commitments. Place the planner in a position where you have easy access to it. Write in the dates assignments are due and exams are scheduled. Work out how long you will need to complete each task. Allow yourself plenty of time. Remember to allow for extra workload. If you have several assignments due at the same time, then youll need to begin each task earlier. Set start dates for each task and write them on your planner. Draw lines back from the due dates to start dates. Use different colour pens for different subjects, assignments or exams.Doing this will give you a good indication of how much time you have to complete tasks and cue you to start them.
Tips to Make Time Management Easier Dont put off small tasks. Completing them straight away encourages you to begin tackling larger tasks. Try chunking al ong/ difficult tasks into sections. This allows you to approach a large task as a series of manageable parts. Dont try to write an entire assignment in one sitting. Complete it section by section. If you have writers block, try writing somethinganything down. Even if you change it later, at least youve started.
Your study and the time you spend on it is up to you. If you find yourself losing direction, remind yourself of why you are doing your degree; remembering your goals can put things into perspective.
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday GYM SHORT SHORT Tutorial Lecture SHORT Lab MEDIUM LUNCH Lab
LUNCH Discussion MEDIUM Group Lecture MEDIUM/ LONG DINNER MEDIUM/ LONG Sleep DINNER Work
LUNCH
DINNER
Dinner Sleep
Sleep
Be Flexible
Some weeks will be busier than others, and unforeseen things can happen. Remember that a timetable is only a plan or a guide. You dont have to follow it religiously every week, but try to stick to your plan as best you can. If you plan a study time slot and miss it, dont paniclook at the schedule and rearrange your time.
Be Realistic
A great deal of time management is really about taking responsibility for your learning. The best plan is to be aware of how much time you have and to manage it effectively. Be realistic about your time and what you can do with it.
Over commitment Before you undertake study, you need to realistically assess all the demands on your time. Consider paid employment, family duties, sport, leisure or civic commitments. Good time management will not help if you are overcommitted. If you study full time, spend more than about 12 hours per week in paid employment and spend every evening at the gym, you wont have much time to study. If you suspect you might have taken on too much, reassess your commitments, prioritise and compromise. Be realistic about the amount of time an assignment will take you to complete. Different tasks require different amounts of preparation time. For example, you might only need a few hours to prepare for a tutorial, but writing an assignment will take significantly longer. You cant produce good, well-written work unless you give yourself enough time to think, research and write. Brilliant assignments are not written the night before, so start them in good time. Seeking Help Its easy to procrastinate when you experience difficulties with an assignment, but putting off starting only means youll have less time to work on it. If you miss an assignment deadline, you will lose marks. So, if you think you need some assistance, ask for it. Remember, good time management includes good self-management. Talk to your tutor about difficult assignments, or visit services like The Learning Centre or The Counselling service. Dont put off seeking advice the longer you wait, the more anxious youll feel.
Solution: Check your energy level and concentration. Take a short break or a little exercise every hour. Open a window and walk around. If you drift off, try visualising a red stop light. Hold that image for a few seconds-then switch to a green light and go back to work.
Problem: Feeling that you cant begin because you wont be able to produce a perfect assignment
Solution: Forget about writing a masterpieceaim for reasonable results. Its better to produce a reasonable effort and pass, than to delay for so long that you produce nothing.
Student Strategies
Some of the following comments from university students at the end of their first year discuss issues of study and time that might sound familiar (Field, Gilchrist & Gray, 1989). The comments are about two areas: planning ahead without getting obsessed about it, and developing effective habits for dealing with worry and stress. Trying to plan ahead without going overboard: Compared to school, its not that the work is harder, its just that its more detailed and therefore more time-consuming Instead of procrastinating, start thinking about the assignment right away so that youre the first one to get to the books. Most importantly, if you get a good start on an assignment you allow yourself enough time to deal with any unexpected problems Developing effective habits for dealing with worry and stress: Having some fun or relaxation on the weekend gives me enough strength to regain my sanity to start another week Even though Im not finding everything awful or the workload too great, I get anxious sometimes. Last week, for example, I was sick and didnt get half as much done as I had planned. So I have more to do this week. Im finding right now that I cant get all my reading done. So I just have to read what is most important, as I know I cant possibly read every single thing
Further Readings Covey, S 1990, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon & Shuster, New York. Field, D, Gilchrist, G & Gray, N 1989, First Year University: A Survival Guide. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. MacQueen, C 1998, Getting Ahead in Tertiary Study: A Practical Guide for Business, Social Science and Arts Students, UNSW Press, Sydney. Northedge, A 1990, The Good Study Guide, The Open University, Milton Keynes. Prepared by The Learning Centre, The University of New South Wales 2001. This Guide may be distributed for educational purposes and adapted with proper acknowledgement.