This week’s theme is ’Time Management’
One of the most important skills you can develop whilst at university is independently managing your time. This is when good habits are made — looking at the big picture, identifying all the tasks to be done, allocating enough time every day to work efficiently, taking care of your ‘life admin’ needs (fitness, laundry, eating healthy, social time) and most of all, not cramming everything in at the last minute. Now’s the time to get some systems in place to ensure you can be productive and get everything done effectively, and with not too many all-nighters in the process!
READ: This article outlines why the good use of calendars is WAY better than To Do lists at managing your time. Some great tips to get started! (5min read):
DO: CALENDAR BLOCKING!! Do you use Google Calendar? If not… WHY NOT? Time to start!
Take some time this week to plan your calendar for the rest of the term. Note down deadlines for all your modules, and write in self-imposed deadlines for getting key milestones accomplished like completing your research or drafting an outline for your essays. Plot in the meetings for tutorials with your tutors. Then take it a step further - look at next week, and plot in time for reading, exercise, social time, or anything else that is a priority. I like to colour-code my calendars (in Google Calendar) for extra efficiency. Purple is work, blue is study, red is social, green is fitness, brown is life admin. Try it, it’s very satisfying!
WATCH/LISTEN
Here’s a great tutorial for how to use Google Calendar (14min):
And here’s another one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O1Sype_U2A