Time Management

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 :)