By: Liz Coady
Edited by: Peter Milobar
“Everybody gets the same 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We make time for what we truly want”
-Unknown
Your first semester of university is more than halfway done and it has probably been quite a learning experience in more ways than one. In my first year, I learned a lot of things in school and I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I was absolutely terrible at managing my time. As a result, I had a very difficult time adjusting to university life and balancing academics, friends, and extra-curricular activities. When second semester came around, I changed my habits, worked managing my time better, and improved my ability to balance each aspect of my life. So here are my top 5 tips for managing your time.
- Write it down
Keep track of all the tasks, assignments and events that you need to do. Whether it is an agenda, a notebook or a loose sheet of paper, write down what you need to do. It’s a great way to get a visual for how much or how little there is to be done and a great way to remember everything.
Be a smart cookie like Studious Sally here and write it down
- Plan it out
Now that you can see what you need to do, it’s time to organize when you will do it. A calendar comes in really handy for this. To get a general overview, write down the due dates and the percentage worth of each assignment. This will allow you to prioritize each assignment and determine how much time to dedicate to each assignment. For example, if you see that you have two exams in the same week and you see that one exam is only worth 20% of your mark while the other exam is worth 40% of your mark, dedicate more time to studying for the second exam
Planning Pete seems to have his game on
- Prevent Procrastination
Procrastination happens so easily, especially nowadays with access to the internet and other distractions right at our fingertips. An effective method to prevent procrastination is to set goals each day of what you would like to get done and when you would like them done by. For instance, you have to do Webworks for math, write a proposal for English, finish the Mastering physics problem set and quickly do the assignment for French class- Here is how I would plan it out.
4 pm – 3 questions in Webworks
6 pm – last few questions in Mastering Physics
7 pm — finish eating dinner
9 pm – Written up rough draft of English proposal
11 pm – French assignment
12am – Bed
Make sure that you leave some buffer time in between each activity in case you take a little longer than expected. It’s important also to stick to the plan! When the time comes to move onto a new task, move on. Make time the next day to allow yourself to finish up unfinished work.
- Put similar things together
When scheduling the tasks you need to do, put similar tasks together. Let’s say it’s a Saturday and you need to do grocery shopping, talk with your group about your project, do your laundry, call home and pre-read for the upcoming week. When planning, put all the chores together and all the homework together so that your schedule will look like this:
- Put laundry in the machine
- Go catch the bus to the grocery store
- Call home while on the bus
- Shop for groceries
- Put laundry in the dryer, put away groceries while laundry is in the drier
- Eat lunch
- Meet up with group to discuss project
- Pre-read
- Treat yourself
Make sure you make time to treat yourself! You just did a lot of productive work and deserve a treat. A treat can be anything from time to relax with your friends or buying yourself a small treat or even allowing yourself to watch an episode of your favourite TV show on Netflix. Treat yourself so you don’t burn out and are able to keep going. You can also use the treats as motivation to get through your day or your week.
Maybe don’t go that far though….
Have an awesome day Totem!!
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