Time Management
Topics on Student Success
Just when you think tomorrow will never come, it’s yesterday.
While everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, it often doesn’t feel like enough. All time management begins with planning. Managing your time involves making a schedule and using daily, weekly and semesterly lists.
Maximizing your time
1. Get a day planner.
The easiest way to start a schedule is by carrying a planner to help you keep track of class, work, appointments, and things you want to do. Use only one calendar, carry it with you, and make it a habit to refer to it. Your day planner should have a weekly schedule and monthly calendar. In addition, you will want to have a space for a daily to-do list in your planner. Develop a habit of spending 10 minutes at the end of each day looking at what you’ve completed, considering your progress toward your goals, and planning your next day.
2. Start with a weekly schedule.
This will be your foundation for budgeting your time. You should identify and fill in your priorities and inflexible times first. Fill in:
- Classes and set labs
- Jobs
- 1 hour for lunch and dinner
- Sports practice
- Meetings (Health appointments, clubs, tutoring, etc.)
- Study time *TIP – Plan studying/class work for the time of day you can focus most easily and work best
So at this point, your weekly schedule might look similar to this sample weekly schedule
Secondly, you will want to add things that are more flexible like:
- Exercise
- TV
- Recreation/Relaxation
3. Make a daily “to-do” list.
It’s best to write this out each night for the following day or each morning. This should be an action-oriented list and contain things like phone calls, errands, shopping, laundry. Be sure to include preparing for upcoming tests/quizzes and subjects to focus on. You may want to put a star by the priorities. You can move the less important things to the following day’s list if you can’t get them all done.
4. Use your monthly calendar to keep track of events during the semester.
Write down exam dates, due dates for papers and projects, campus events and other important dates that may be a month or more away. You should keep all of this information in one specific place. This prevents you from flipping through each class notebook to see when you have an upcoming due date.
5. Write up a semester list.
Put down your goals for the semester and things you want to do that are not urgent. What do you want to accomplish by the end of the semester? (Also see the Goal Setting section). If there is something on your mind, put it on this list so you can clear your mind and concentrate on the things going on today. Pull out your semester task list once a month to review and update.
A few more tips for managing your time:
- Spend the last 10 minutes of every night or the first 10 minutes of every
morning reviewing what you need to accomplish. This small amount of time
can save you hours later in the day, ensuring you have the necessary information,
materials and plans in place to effectively go about your day.
- Make sure you set aside enough time to get done what needs to get done.
It’s better to block out fours hours to study for your math test
and then find out you only need three than it is to have only set aside
two hours and find you need four! Remember that learning is the key reason
you are at school. Set aside enough time to make the most of your studies
and make this time focused time.
- Avoid sticky-note overload! Transfer notes to yourself to one standard
location, for instance in a specific section of your calendar.
- When clearing off your desk, go through the items one time and DO something
with them. For each item on your desk, decide if it can be thrown away,
filed away, or if you need to act on it. If it needs to be acted upon,
add it to your to-do list or calendar.
- Try to use any spare time you have, make every minute count. Use the 10 minutes you're waiting in student health to review note cards or the 5 minutes before class starts to look over lab notes again.
SAMPLE WEEKLY SCHEDULE - STEP 1
| time |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thur |
Fri |
Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7-8 am | ||||||
| 8-9 am |
Class |
Study Time |
Class |
Study Time |
Class |
|
| 9-10 am |
Class |
Study Time |
Class |
Study Time |
Class |
|
| 10-11 am |
Health Center Appointmt |
Spanish Club Mtg. |
Study Group |
Campus Job |
||
| 11-12 noon |
Class |
Class |
Campus Job |
|||
| 12-1 pm |
Class |
Class |
Campus Job |
|||
| 1-2 pm |
lunch |
lunch |
lunch |
lunch |
lunch |
|
| 2-3 pm |
Class |
Class |
||||
| 3-4 pm | ||||||
| 4-5 pm |
Chemistry Lab |
Chemistry Lab |
||||
| 5-6 pm |
dinner |
dinner |
dinner |
dinner |
dinner |
|
| 6-7 pm |
Campus Job |
Campus Job |
||||
| 7-8 pm |
Study Time |
Campus Job |
Campus Job |
|||
| 8-9 pm |
Study Time |
Campus Job |
Campus Job |
|||
| 9-10 pm |
Study Group |
|||||
| 10-11 pm |