How to manage your time

Ideas and strategies to help manage your time and avoid distractions.

Managing your time

Time management is perhaps the single most important and challenging skill to develop as a student.

In an environment where nobody will tell you precisely what you should be doing and when, skills in planning, managing and meeting personal deadlines – both social and academic – are a huge benefit.

Some people like to plan things early in fine detail so that everything is ready in plenty of time. Others positively thrive on the pressure of meeting a last-minute deadline.

Whichever kind of person you are, you will need to keep on top of a range of different tasks at the same time, so you will need to consciously manage your time one way or another.

Managing your time and avoiding distractions Workshop: Book here

The importance of downtime

Time management is not just about fitting as much as you possibly can into your day. It is also about building good habits that are sustainable in the long term.

For a short period, we might be able to work ten to twelve hours a day, but this is not a sustainable way of working and runs the risk of burning out.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that working more than eight hours a day will decrease your efficiency and focus.

Building a steady and sustainable schedule will get you making progress every day without overworking yourself and it will help you stay happier and more focused. Try to identify when you work most efficiently and plan heavy tasks for those times.

Try to build in one to two hours of free time, socialising, or exercise every day into your schedule and take at least one day off every week.

Some key principles:

Top and tail - Identify a start time and end time for your working day. When you reach your end time, try to switch off until the next day.
Make space - Find a study space that works for you and allows you to have an appropriate work-life balance. Perhaps a desk that you only sit at to work or finding a space that works for you on campus.
Reward yourself - Make plans for evenings and weekends that you can use as an incentive.
Be realistic - Recognise that you won't finish everything that you set out to do every time. Use a prioritised to-do list to make sure the essentials are completed first.

Remember getting through your course is a marathon, not a sprint.

Planning your time

The first step towards building good habits is understanding your workload. Map out all your deadlines and other important milestones to get an overview using a year planner or calendar.

Visit Calendarpedia for a range of different calendar formats to help with planning.

It's a good idea to plan your standard week based on your contact hours (lectures, seminars, labs, etc) and the amount of independent study you are expected to do.

This might include prep time for your lectures, seminars and lab work, reading, exercises and reports, as well as all of your end-of-term assignments and exam revision.

A full-time university course roughly equates to a working week of 35 hours. Planning out your weekly tasks in one place will give you a realistic idea of the amount of work needed and where you might have spare time available.

Try out the 301 Weekly planner template (PDF, 399KB) to plan your 'standard' week.Finally, you'll need to keep track of all your tasks. A good idea might be to create a Prioritised To-Do list (Google Doc) for each module, adding to it everything that you need to do and identifying which are the high-priority tasks and which are lower priority.

Try using the 301 urgent/important matrix (Google Doc) to decide on the priority of tasks

Beating procrastination

Procrastination, or putting off tasks which need to be done, can have a major impact on our levels of stress and anxiety.

Rather than simple time-wasting or laziness, procrastination is a genuine psychological response to workload demands. Defined as a form of voluntary, irrational delay that has negative consequences for the person, procrastination is a habitual form of postponing action to a later date.

If you sometimes procrastinate, don't panic. Studies suggest that at least 70% of students procrastinate regularly during their time at university. Procrastinating is a habit and, like all habits, it can be broken.

Some things to try:

Spend some time reflecting on when and how you procrastinate. Be honest with yourself and see if you can pinpoint triggers for procrastination.
Break large tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks. Try and ease yourself in with easier chunks, rather than starting with something more difficult or ambitious.
Structure your time backwards from deadlines and update your plan as new tasks are added to your to-do list. Prioritise urgent and important tasks and tick tasks off to track your progress.
Build positive habits by embedding behaviours over time, for example starting work at a particular time or identifying a daily study target.

Try taking the 301 21-day habit-forming challenge (Google Doc) to put this into practice.

Eat the frog

"Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day"

Nicholas Chamfort

Causeries Du Lundi, 1851

Often, there is a single, awkward task that gets in the way of all others: email your tutor, meet your supervisor, compile your bibliography, read a difficult article.

That task is your frog. Try dispatching it first thing in the morning and the rest of the day will seem much easier.

Next steps

Further Resources

Google Calendar training by LinkedIn Learning can help to manage your time and remind yourself of important appointments and tasks within your student Google Calendar.

StudySkills@Sheffield