Hi Guys,
This month's post is going to be about time management - a crucial step
in making sure you don't end up staying up until midnight, cramming for your
biology test on the night before. I hope to share some of my techniques with
you!
I have a confession to make... I'm a list making addict.
I can't stress how much making a simple list of the tasks you'd like to achieve
for the day improves your efficiency. Particularly on a day where you feel
overloaded with a million and one things to complete, making note of these
things helps to break down your workload, creating a list of smaller, much more
achievable tasks, thus really helping to clear your mind before you begin your
(hopefully productive) day. It's useful to prioritise these
in order of urgency/importance, but I also recommend tackling one or two
smaller tasks first, as it helps you to set off to a good start. However,
perhaps what I love most about this technique is how dangerously satisfying it
is to flamboyantly tick off (or aggressively scribble out) one of these
items... seriously the best feeling ever.
On a related note, I really like setting goals for the
evening/day/week. There are a couple of important things regarding this:
- It may only be one part of the final picture, for example: "This evening, I will finish revising lipids, for my test on biological molecules next week"
- Make it achievable, but still effective in achieving your ultimate goal
- Be specific in what you want to complete: “I will do questions 1-9 today” as opposed to "I will do as much as I can of the my chemistry homework"
Another thing I really recommend is making a generic detailed
weekly plan. By this, I mean an hour by hour plan of every day of an
average week. Obviously other events, like parties, come up, and so you can't
follow this all the time, but it really helps in highlighting how much
productive time you actually have, and how much you're wasting. You'll probably
find that miraculously, you do have time for half an hour's
piano practise every day, if you just give your day a little more structure.
You might also find that you have much more free time than you thought too, if
you stick to this plan! In terms of finding a template, I just hand drew a time
table from 7am to 11pm, but this one works well too: http://www.studenthandouts.com/01-Web-Pages/Lot-01/Weekly-Hourly-Planner.html.
You may even want to make a more precise every week, including all your
specific things to do for that week (although it's very time consuming)!
Something that I've recently discovered is that I actually work best
late at night - probably due to the absence of my family and other
distractions. I find that realising when you're working most
productively genuinely revolutionises how you work. I've started
staying up later on weekends, and getting as much of my work done then as I
can, so I can be slightly more relaxed and spend time with my family for the
rest of the time. On the other hand, you may prefer getting up earlier and
getting it done when you're rejuvenated after a good night's sleep, and then
relaxing during the evenings. It's totally personal preference!
Lastly, an oldie but a goodie: don’t
leave it until the last minute. We all know
this is literally is never a good idea, but somehow it still happens.
Regardless of whether something’s due tomorrow or next month, it’s always good
to get it done as soon as possible. One after the other, these things pile up,
and as the due date grows closer, the stress comes flooding in – I’m sure we’ve
all been there!
I hope this has helped some of you!
Thanks for reading :)