Managing Your Time
Master Planner
Planning your day at the beginning of the semester or school year is extremely important. It will set the standard for the rest of your time in school. You should start from day one, by figuring out where your classes are and by using the provided syllabus to take note of assignments, papers, major projects, and exams to manage your time accordingly. You should also take note of any activities, jobs, or internships you will be a part of during that time and their corresponding time commitments. A great way to keep track of everything is by creating a master planner. Planning your days will help relieve stress and help your day go more smoothly.
A master planner can be broken up into four categories:
Classwork– List all your classes (don’t forget to include labs). For each class list out all homework, quizzes, papers, projects, and exams. Don’t forget to include partial work on assignments that are likely to take several days to do (ex. projects or papers).
Work – List any tasks you must complete that are related to a job or internship if you currently have one.
Other activities – These include activities such as studying, advising appointments, team meetings, student organizations, volunteer events
Personal – These include fun things and things you need to do as a person rather than as a student. Typical activities in this category could include working out, hanging out with friends, playing games, going to sports events, doing laundry, shopping, having a medical appointment, etc.
Download Sample Master Planner Here | Download Blank Master Planner Here
How to develop and use your master planner:
Gather Information: At this stage do not worry about organizing tasks by dates but rather by subjects. Read all your syllabi and list all your assignments, papers, quizzes, and exams one class at a time. Then list out any other major tasks or events related to your job, internship, and extracurricular activities. Afterward, add any major personal activities. You can update your excel later on if new tasks or events arise.
Color Code: Assign a color to each separate subject or category. Highlight all the tasks under that subject or category with the same color.
Organize: Once you have listed out all of your tasks in excel you can organize them by date. To do this select your entire table. On a Mac, you can click the first cell in the table, and then press COMMAND+SHIFT+DOWN ARROW+ RIGHT ARROW (do not include the headers in your selection). On Windows, you can click the first cell in the table, and then press CTRL+SHIFT+DOWN ARROW+ RIGHT ARROW. Once your table is selected click the HOME button at the top of the excel. Then click the SORT AND FILTER button on the far right. Click CUSTOM SORT. For Column select COLUMN F and for Order select OLDEST TO NEWEST then press OK. Once you have done this your entire excel should be sorted by the due dates of all of your tasks.
Use: Take note of particularly heavy weeks and plan ahead. Update your master planner as other tasks arise.
Daily Checklist
A well-made master planner will help you have a broad overview of your semester or year. You will be able to view which weeks are the heaviest and which are the lightest. The master planner can also serve as a reminder of big or important events to keep in mind. If you wish you can transfer your master planner to a digital planner to have reminders and notifications. In addition to a master planner, you will need to develop a daily checklist to plan out your tasks on a day-to-day basis. This will help you stay productive and manage your time wisely every day.
Download Sample Master Daily Checklist Here | Download Blank Daily Checklist Here
How to develop and use your daily checklist:
Make a binder with the master planner and daily checklists. When you get an assignment or task, record it and the due date in your master planner as soon as possible to make sure that you don’t forget about it. This way, when you look over your master planner you will see all your tasks and you will be able to figure out the best time to put them on your daily checklist and get them done.
Each night before you go to bed, record items from your master planner onto your daily checklist for the next day. Often doing this before you go to sleep will help you get things together for the next day and can prevent you from forgetting things if you are in a rush.
Develop a study schedule. Plan time to review your notes and do homework between or after classes. Allotting a certain amount of time for homework and studies will allow you to keep on track with all of your assignments.
When you finish an item, check the item off of your checklist. If you did things that were not on your list, add them to the list.
If you don’t complete an item, record a comment as to why you did not complete it.
Rate yourself on how well you planned and executed your day. Use a 1-10 scale.
After each week, ask yourself these questions:
Did I plan to do too much?
Did I plan to do too little?
What could I have done differently to reach all the items on my checklist?
How can I become more efficient in completing tasks?
Use your score and the answers to these questions to determine how you can improve.
Don’t forget to put in time for yourself. Doing too much can put a lot of stress on oneself. Make sure you leave plenty of time for sleep and set a time to be in bed. Sleeping is key to success. It not only helps you feel rested, but it also helps you be more focused.
Eliminate outside factors that would have a negative effect on your performance. Also, determine what factors have a positive effect on your performance.
Add factors that affect you or your performance’s outcome positively. Surround yourself with motivating friends, or perhaps activities
Have an accountability partner who will help you stay on track
Adjust your planning according to your experiences
How to Prioritize
Prioritizing can be very helpful when you have a lot of tasks to get done. Here are a few techniques you can use to ensure that you are getting your most important tasks done and ensure your success:
Write everything down
Effective prioritization comes from understanding the scope of what you need to get done. Even personal mundane tasks should be written down. You can accomplish this by making your master planner and daily checklists. Once everything is written down, prioritization is typically based on importance, urgency, length, and reward.
Evaluate your goals
Prioritization is key to achieving long-term goals. Understanding what you’re working toward helps you identify tasks most pertinent to those future outcomes. You should break larger goals into smaller, time-related goals and always keep the end goal in mind.
To learn more about setting goals check out this ARTICLE
Create clear deadlines
Your master planner should include all deadlines, helping you to identify which tasks must be completed promptly and to plan ahead according to future deadlines. Creating deadlines even when they’re not formally required is also important; otherwise, you will continuously push back important tasks just because they aren’t time-sensitive.
Prioritize based on urgency and importance
Urgent and important tasks should be done first. For important but not urgent tasks you can block off time on your calendar to get this done, without interruption at a later time. If a task is urgent but unimportant you should delegate them if possible. If not, your focus should be on completing these tasks as efficiently as possible. If the task is neither urgent nor important then it should be considered a low-priority task.
Another strategy to use is the Most Important Tasks (MIT) methodology. This strategy involves creating a separate list of just three tasks that must be done that day. These tasks should be chosen more for their importance than their urgency. To decide, ask yourself goal-oriented questions: What tasks will have the biggest impact on the end result? What can I get done today to further my progress toward that goal?
Avoid distractions
As the difficulty of your tasks increases, you should focus on one important task at a time instead of multitasking. A tactic to stay focused on one important task is identifying distractions and actively avoiding them throughout the day. This can even mean avoiding other tasks until you have completed the most important one. If you are having difficulty maintaining your focus check out this ARTICLE.
Consider effort
When you have a long to-do list, it is easy to become overwhelmed and procrastinate. To overcome this evaluate tasks according to the effort required to complete them. Prioritize those tasks that require minimal time and effort and move through them quickly. This clearing of tasks will generate a sense of accomplishment and propel you to complete other tasks.