How to Manage Time

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How To Manage Time
by Spencer Rathus and Lois Fichner-Rathus

Source: Rathus, S. & Fichner-Rathus, L. (1995, Spring ). How to manage time. Keys to Success. Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 2-3,19. A Prentice Hall Allyn Bacon publication. We are not born knowing how to manage time. We learn how to manage time. Learning how to manage time-and ourselves-is one of the unstated tasks of college life. Unstated, but vital. Managing time means making a reasonable schedule and then sticking to it, except for... the legitimate exceptions. What are legitimate exceptions? Some are obvious, like getting sick or getting so wrapped up in library work that you get to dinner late. Watching Police Academy 15 for the tenth time is not! Finding Out How You Spend Your Time Psychologists have found that when you're trying to help people change their behavior for the better, the best place for them to start is to find out exactly what they are doing now. Making a record of what you do is called recording a baseline. As a matter of fact, in one study, psychologists increased the amount of time students spent studying merely by having them keep a record of where and when they studied! Why does playing detective with yourself have such a remarkable effect? For one thing, if you find that you're squandering your time, coming face to face with the fact may help motivate you to do something about it. For example, the discovery that you spend 12 hours a week napping and another 12 hours a week watching television suggests a couple of "activities" that could be cut down. Then, too, the baseline makes you generally more aware of time. As a result, time becomes less likely to slip through your fingers. There are 168 hours in a week. Take a week or two and enter the hours spent in classes, at meals, studying, working, exercising, socializing, musing, fantasizing, napping, watching TV-all of it. Now total the hours. So are you spending your time wisely or are you squandering time? Following is advice to help you set up a schedule and use your time more wisely: Construct a Clear and Reasonable Schedule You should be able to live with and feel good about your schedule. Give yourself some time for socializing or just for relaxing in a pretty part of campus.

Pick the Right Times of Day If possible, try and schedule classes for the time of day when you are most alert. Our bodies have certain built-in rhythms. These are times during the day when functions like attentiveness are at their peak. Put your classes, especially your toughest, in the slots when you're at your sharpest. Schedule Enough Time for Studying As a rule of thumb, you should study two hours for every hour of class. That approach works better for some classes than for others. For example, in an art studio course, you may get all of your work done during class. In a course on the nineteenth-century English novel, you may need to read five hours for every hour spent in class. Try not to schedule several courses with heavy reading loads for the same term! Schedule Time Between Classes If possible This will allow you to preview the text and your notes before classes (10-15 minutes) and review your notes after classes (15-20 minutes). Research on memory shows that we forget about half of what we learn within a half-hour. By studying course notes right after class, we strengthen our learning and remember more. If we wait until a few days before the exam to pull out our notes, we are trying to rebuild a crumbling edifice. If you find yourself with an hour and fifteen minutes between your two afternoon classes, the temptation may be there to kill the time by hanging out with friends in your student union or dorm. Instead, go to the library and read that next chapter. You'll feel better for having done so, and that's an extra hour you can use to spend with your buddies later on-when your work is done! Plan Ahead Allow yourself enough time to prepare for examinations. Plan to have assignments completed a day or two ahead of their due dates, so that you have room in your schedule in case a problem causes you to fall behind. Be Specific Break big tasks like 'work on paper" into concrete, reachable goals. "Work on term paper" does not tell you where to begin. Instead, you might break the task down into bits and pieces that you work on twice a week. "Select a topic for paper," "Check library card catalog for references," "Outline the paper," "Write an introduction" are some examples. You could also specify slots for revising, proofread-ing, and producing a final draft. Schedule Time for Mundane Chores

Give yourself time to take care of your personal responsibilities. Cleaning and doing your laundry take time, so budget for them in your schedule. Be Strategic Study your difficult subjects during times of day when you are alert and when you are least likely to be disturbed or interrupted. Also be strategic in where you study. If the dorm is too noisy, go to the library! Don't study while lying in bed if you often find yourself falling asleep! Give Yourself Some Variety We become more alert and motivated when we are presented with novel stimulation or a change of pace. Apply these maxims to your schedule as follows: Don't study physics all night on Monday, literature all night on Tuesday, and psychology all day on Wednesday. Study each one for a while every day so you will avoid boredom and maintain a lively interest in the subject matter. Save the Best for Last Consider scheduling your most enjoyable work last. This will give you something to look forward to. Be Aware of Your Limits We all have different attention spans. Some of us can work for two hours or more without looking up. Others cannot last for more than 15 minutes without needing a break of some kind. After years of studying, you must ha a reasonably accurate impression of the extent of your own attention span. Try not to be unrealistic by scheduling too many hours of studying in a row. For most students, we would not recommend more than three hours of studying without a break. During extended periods of study, we suggest taking a five-to-ten minute breather each hour. Get up and stretch. Get a sip of water. This will make the time you are studying more productive! "The Play's the Thing" Remember that 'all work and no play" makes for a miserable and unproductive college career. People who manage to fit some fun into their work tend to be more motivated and creative, and more capable of meeting the challenges that lie ahead. Reserve slots for recreational activities. Make sure that you don't study right through them. If you like getting together with your friends to watch Melrose Place, then by all means do it! If you schedule for "fun," you'll find the work periods aren't as tedious. Be Flexible

Allow yourself some flexibility. After all, your schedule is intended to serve you, not to rule you. You may not be able to change the times that classes meet, but you may (occasionally!) find it worthwhile to skip a class because you're finally making excellent grades on a term paper that's aging you prematurely. If you've got a part-time job, you have to show up regularly or else you may be fired. But you may be able to postpone a study session to a free period if you have the chance to spend time with the man or woman of your dreams. It might also make sense to put off the laundry during final exams. Use your judgment and make sure that You're not using "flexibility" as an excuse for indefinitely postponing some of the less pleasant tasks on your schedule. Set Down Priorities and Long-Term Assignments List your top priorities and long-term assignments at the top of each week's schedule. The priori-ties are the least flexible items. If you must do some switching around, these are the things you'll make up fast. Check syllabi or class notes for long-term dates when papers are due and tests will be given. Note important longterm dates on a monthly calendar so that you can transfer them onto your weekly schedule. Having your long-term assignments in front of you prevents you from forgetting about them and encourages you to do something about them on a weekly basis. Pat Yourself on the Back Reward yourself for achieving your study goals on schedule. Some people like to cross things off as they complete them as a physical reminder of their accomplishments. When you're having one of those days when you feel you aren't getting anything done, you can go back and look at all you've really achieved. Spencer Rathus and Lois Fichner-Rathus are no novices in the field of college success. Between them they have three decades of experience in teaching and counseling college students. The above excerpt is taken from their text, MAKING THE MOST OF COLLEGE, Second Edition (1994, Prentice Hall).

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