How Can I Manage My University Time Effectively?
Time management is a skill that you’ll use for the rest of your life. University is a unique time where you have an extremely wide spectrum of time management outcomes that on one end, can go from utter chaos and disorder, do whatever you want whenever you want, to the opposite extreme, where you can be completely rigid with your time and run it like a 9-5 office job. Clearly it helps to have some guiding principles!
Starting from thinking about time as a concept, theoretically everybody's day is limited to the same 24 hours. Realistically, everyone’s situation is different. Need to commute for 2 hours? Cycle in for 30 minutes? Maybe you’re a slow or a fast reader? Maybe you work part time for 4 hours every day? There are many reasons that the 24 hours you started with realistically gets cut down to only a handful of hours. After deducting time for the necessities like sleeping, eating and maintaining your body, the most important question to ask is: After I’ve dealt with the necessities, how can I make the most effective use of the time left?
Think about it this way: Imagine someone says you only have 90 minutes today to focus on 3 activities that are important to you- how would you get the best out of that 90 minutes? You wouldn't start by doing something low priority like getting groceries and reading Reddit. We recommend:
1. Prioritize the top activities you want to do. Identify what handful of activities are most important and which of these you want to get done first. It becomes harder and you get more tired as the day goes on, which we find decreases effectiveness. If there's a hard class you need to study for or an assignment urgently coming due, work on that first. If you get tired, take a small break or nap between activities for 15-20 minutes (set a timer!), then get to your next activity.
2. Have a target outcome from each priority. Going into each activity, aim to achieve a certain outcome. Say you're writing an essay or making notes, target a certain number of pages. Or aim to complete a certain number of questions. If you don't really have an idea of what outcome you want, start first by aiming to do it for a certain amount of time. As you spend more time on the activity, research it or ask people for their thoughts, you'll discover what outcomes you want to achieve.
3. Aim for incrementally achievable challenges, not frustrations. Try to have your activity or challenge just a little beyond your existing abilities, not too far out of reach. It's like trying to write a novel when you can only write a paragraph, trying to apply multiple math formulas or concepts when you only know one of them, or trying to run for an hour when you can only run 10 minutes. Frustration can easily set in if you're trying to stretch yourself too far- think of each activity like adding a little more challenge at a time and gradually getting stronger. If you do get stuck or frustrated, ask your friends, professors or research another way it could be solved.
4. Remove as many distractions as you can. Maybe it's noisy at home or you're sitting at a staircase, window or other busy area of the library or coffee shop- try moving to a new spot or turn your chair so it's not directly facing the distraction. Also, cell phones, vibrations and screen popups are a sure-fire way to get distracted - switch to airplane mode or flip your phone over. Try out noise-canceling headphones or listen to some music without lyrics. Epic music helps feel like you’re going on a quest!
5. Charge your energy levels before starting. We suggest having a small snack, grabbing your favourite drink like a coffee or tea, or close your eyes and do some breathing exercises or stretches beforehand. These help to charge your mental batteries. You can certainly do work tired, but it's certainly not going to be your best work.
Putting this all together: Review your day to see how much time you can realistically dedicate to your priorities, for example 3 hours. Then if you have 3 priorities to work on, allocate time to each priority, say 1 hour to each. Create a goal for each of those hours and maximize the impact you have during each hour by aiming for achievable challenges, reducing distractions, and getting energized before you start.