Time Management Exercise
Time Management Exercise
Time Wasters
In this exercise, identify your biggest time waster, which precludes you from accomplishing goals and objectives. Identify its cause(s) and indicate your strategy for eliminating your important time wasters.
Tips to Better Manage Your Time
1. Concentrate on one thing at a time. Study difficult or boring subjects first while you are still fresh and get this “chore” out of the way to make the rest of the day easier for yourself. Be active in what you are doing at that time.
2. Be aware of your best time of the day. When do you study best? Daytime? Nighttime? Schedule study time during your best study hours for the classes that are hardest or you like the least. Experiment. Get up early, stay up late to see what works best for you. Remember to use your daylight hours and minutes and consider staying on campus between classes and finding a quiet place to study.
3. Use waiting time. Have short study tasks ready to do when you are waiting, such as between classes, while waiting for a friend, or standing in line somewhere. An example would be to carry 3 x 5 cards with you that contain facts, formulas, or definitions, which could be brought anywhere while you are waiting. Use time between classes to review class notes and to again use 3 x 5 cards. Use a tape recorder to make a tape of you reading your notes, which you could listen to on the bus, while exercising, or while walking to class.
4. Use a regular study area. Train your body so that you can focus attention more quickly. Use this area ONLY to study, such as the library or a study lounge, which has good lighting, low noise, and no distractions. Find a place where you can study everyday that has tables and chairs, is quiet, and has low traffic. If you are studying at a computer table, shut the computer off. This way, you will not become distracted (tempted) with E-mail or Instant Messenger.
5. Study where you will be alert. Do not study where you sleep and avoid chairs and sofas. You need ENERGY, not relaxation.
6. Pay attention to your attention. Keep a note pad next to you while studying to jot down random thoughts that interfere with your studying. Get them out of your mind and onto a paper so that you can refocus on studying. If the task is really pressuring, do it, and then return to your studying.
7. Agree with living mates (roommates, parents, spouses, or kids) about study time. Have set times or a signal to indicate that you are studying and need to be left alone. Try using a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door.
8. Get off the phone. Do not use the phone as an excuse to not study. Tell people when they call that you are studying and they should understand. If it is that important they will call back. If you must, unplug the phone, let the answering machine pick up, or go study somewhere else where there is not a phone.
9. Learn to say no. People understand that you need to study.
10. Plan your day each morning or the night before, and set priorities for yourself. If you have morning calls, look up the numbers the night before and leave them by the phone. Get the materials you will need together to complete your morning tasks. Pack your lunch and book bag.
11. Call ahead. Before walking all over campus to get a form or go to a meeting, find out what you need or directions to where you are going.
12. Do just one more thing. Before going to bed, try to do just one more thing to make the day more complete, and eliminate one task for the next day if it doesn’t interfere with a full night’s sleep.
13. Notice how others misuse your time. If someone else, say a roommate, is misusing your time, then you have to do something about that, such as studying somewhere else, where your roommate cannot misuse your time.
14. Be sure and set deadlines for yourself whenever possible, and reward yourself when you get things done as you had planned, especially the important activities.
15. Make class time your best study time. Go to class prepared, and if you do not have enough time to read the whole assignment, at least look over it. Be sure to review notes from the previous class. Listen attentively and paraphrase what the professor says in your own words.
16. DO NOT procrastinate. Do not let questions about material accumulate. Instead of trying to get it perfect - just do it.
17. Be realistic in your expectations of yourself.
Procrastination
- “One more day won’t make any difference; I’ll just put that off until tomorrow.”
- “It won’t matter if I’m a few minutes late; no one else will be on time.”
- “I work best under pressure.”
- “I’ll watch just fifteen more minutes of TV.”
If you have ever said one of the above or more, or something quite similar, you have most liking been dealing with procrastination.
What is procrastination?
Procrastination is the avoidance of doing a task, which needs to be accomplished. This can lead to feelings of guilt, inadequacy, depression, and self-doubt among students. Procrastination has a high potential for serious consequences. It interferes with the academic and personal success of students.
Why do students procrastinate?
Students procrastinate because of poor time management. Procrastination means not managing your time wisely. You may be uncertain of your priorities, goals, and objectives. You may also be overwhelmed with the task. As a result, you keep putting off your academic assignments for a later date, or spending a great deal of time with your friends and social activities, or worrying about your upcoming examination, class project, and papers, rather than completing them.
Students also procrastinate because they have difficulty concentrating. When you sit at your desk you find yourself daydreaming, staring into space, looking at pictures of your friends, etc., instead of doing the task. Your environment is distracting and noisy. You keep running back and forth for equipment such as pencils, erasers, dictionary, etc. Your desk is cluttered and unorganized and sometimes you sit or lay on your bed to study or do your assignments. You probably notice that all of the examples that you have just read promote time wasting and frustration.
In addition, students procrastinate because of fear and anxiety. You may be overwhelmed with the task and afraid of getting a failing grade. As a result, you spend a great deal of time worrying about your upcoming exams, papers and projects, rather than completing them.
Furthermore, students procrastinate because they have negative beliefs such as: “I cannot succeed in anything” and “I lack the necessary skills to perform the task,” which may allow you to stop yourself from getting work done.
Moreover, students procrastinate because of personal problems, they find the task boring, they failure, or they unrealistic expectations and perfectionism.
- Recognize self-defeating problems such as fear and anxiety, difficulty concentrating, poor time management, indecisiveness, and perfectionism.
- Identify your personal goals, strengths, weaknesses, values, and priorities. Post your goals so that you are reminded of them daily.
- Discipline yourself to use your time wisely: set priorities. Make a schedule of these priorities and how to accomplish them.
- Study in small blocks instead of long time periods.
- Take big jobs and break them into a series of small ones. For example, take a long reading assignment and break it up into several smaller ones.
- Motivate yourself to study: dwell on success, not on failure.
- Try to study in small groups so that others keep you motivated.
- Set realistic goals for yourself to accomplish.
- Modify your environment: eliminate or minimize noise and distraction. Ensure adequate lighting and have necessary equipment at hand. Do not get too comfortable when studying.
- Make sure your study area is neat to avoid daydreaming.
- Convince yourself that the task is worth doing, even if it’s hard getting started.
Preparing for Final Exams
By the end of a semester a standard three-credit course may have covered over a thousand pages of text, forty or more hours of lecture notes, and hundreds of definitions or problems. It is easy to see how you can feel overwhelmed by the volume of material to be learned. Where do you begin?
First, develop a game plan: Creating a plan for the final exams will help you to face finals more confidently.
- List all the courses you currently have to take a final exam in.
- After you have listed all the courses, indicate the grade average you currently have in the course.
- Next, think in the terms of your goal for the course. What grade do you want to get out of the course?
Now take each course separately - list the class and think about it. What are the things you have to do to make the grade you want in this course?
Review the things you have listed to do for each course. Consider the amount of TIME you have left to do these things. Are they things that realistically can be accomplished in the time you have left before the final exam? If your list cannot realistically be accomplished within the amount of time left - make revisions in your list.
Second, schedule study sessions. They should be at least three weeks ahead of time. Make a schedule of when you should study and for what classes, spending more time on the courses you need the most work in to put your goals and plans into action. Decide where you will study. A place with the least amount of distractions, where you can focus is best. Remember to plan for study breaks and the unexpected. If you are going to study in groups, schedule your meeting sessions. And most importantly, remember to take care of yourself and not to wear yourself out.
Third, identify and select the most important material. To do this, find out about the exam and exactly what will be covered on it; use your course syllabus, the table of contents from your textbook, old tests, quizzes, and homework assignments. Integrate information from your reading and lecture notes.
Fourth, explain information in your own words. This will improve concentration and will provide feedback about how well you understand the material. In addition, it stores the information in your long-term memory.
Fifth, organize and condense information into a one-page summary, and make flash cards for memorizing detailed information. Practice asking and answering potential test questions.
Finally, know when to quit studying.
Conclusion
- Am I happy with my time management style?
- Do I need to plan with more structure or less structure?
- What are the problems with my time management style?
- Can I incorporate the planning tips to improve my time management strategies?
- Do I need more help in making a schedule that will work for me?
Hopefully you can answer positively to all, or at least almost all, of the above questions. When managing time, the overall goal is personal effectiveness rather than the time management strategy you have chosen as your own. If you have a style for managing time that is different from anyone else’s than more power to you for being original. Hopefully, the ideas presented in this packet have supplemented or greatly improved your time management skills.
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