Time Management

"24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case...Coincidence?"

When you get to school, it's easy think you have it way easier now that you aren't stuck in one building from 6:30am - 3pm. The truth is, you're just given free run of your time management. But, to keep yourself from digging yourself a hole where you slept all day and have 3 more papers to write at 4am, with an 8am class and the C-Store is all out of Red Bulls, we present to you (and this may only work for the uber-organized), a system to help get your booty in line.

As a student, there are some basic Principles of Time Management that you can apply.

1. Identify "Best Time" for Studying: Everyone has high and low periods of attention and concentration. Are you a "morning person" or a "night person"? Use your power times to study; use the down times for routines such as laundry and errands.

2. Study Difficult Subjects First: When you are fresh, you can process information more quickly and save time as a result.

3. Use Distributed Learning and Practice: Study in shorter time blocks with short breaks between. This keeps you from getting fatigued and "wasting time." This type of studying is efficient because while you are taking a break, the brain is still processing the information.

4. Make Sure the Surroundings are Conducive to Studying: This will allow you to reduce distractions which can "waste time." If there are times in the residence halls or your apartment when you know there will be noise and commotion, use that time for mindless tasks.

5. Make Room for Entertainment and Relaxation: College is more than studying. You need to have a social life, yet, you need to have a balance in your life.

6. Make Sure you Have Time to Sleep and Eat Properly: Sleep is often an activity (or lack of activity) that students use as their time management "bank." When they need a few extra hours for studying or socializing, they withdraw a few hours of sleep. Doing this makes the time they spend studying less effective because they will need a couple hours of clock time to get an hour of productive time. This is not a good way to manage yourself in relation to time.

7. Try to Combine Activities: Use the "Twofer" concept. If you are spending time at the laundromat, bring your psychology notes to study. If you are waiting in line for tickets to the REM concert, bring your biology flashcards to memorize.

Do this first...

Directions: At the end of the week, summarize your activities on the chart below. Once you evaluate where your time goes, print a copy of the Planned Weekly Schedule (next) and fill it in with your course schedule, study time and other activities. Try to follow your schedule to improve your time use.

*To determine percentage, divide the number of hours in an activity by 168. For example; 56 hours of sleep divided by 168 = 33.3%

NOW THAT YOU'VE SUMMARIZED YOUR TIME-USE CHART...

This might be considered the "intermediate step" in the time-scheduling exercises. First, you were asked to keep track of how you SPENT your time. Later, you were asked to BUDGET your time. Now, you are asked to analyze your expenditures -- so that an appropriate budget may be determined later. Respond to the following:

1. (Although it may be true that there is no such thing as the "typical" week in the life of a college student, for our purposes we will define "typical" as a situation in which YOU had control over what you did and when you did it, as opposed to a situation where demands were placed on you over which you could exercise little or no control.)

My Time-use chart appears to be ____typical ____not typical for me. If not typical, the reasons why include...

If this was not a typical week for you, make another Time-use chart and try charting the up-coming week.

2. SPECIFICALLY, what behavior changes, if any, will you need to make to bring your actual time schedule into agreement with what you think your ideal schedule should look like?

The Last Step:

Print this sucker out below, and use what you've just gauged about your days to create a schedule that will maximize your productivity, efficiency, college experience, and help you party without guilt that you should be doing something else (because you already did it!)

Got suggestions? Something different work for you? Go forth and school us, dude.
Thanks to the University of Minnesota-Duluth for these charts and pointers.