Strategies for managing your time well
Checklists
Incorporating visuals into your planning is helpful in remembering what you need to complete. One way of doing this is to create a checklist The first step is to make a list of everything you need to complete, including homework assignments, projects and tests/quizzes to study for, and due dates. Next, you will need to prioritize all of the items on your list by numbering them in order of urgency to be completed. Once this step is completed, you are ready to start working on the items on the list, checking off each one as it is completed. Checklists are a great way or organize the tasks you need to complete, and provide a visual reminder for what still needs to be accomplished. This type of visual helps minimize hindrances to productivity, such as forgetfulness, and ensures that everything gets completed on time.
Daily/weekly plans
There will be times when you are tasked with several assignments to complete in one week. In these situations, you will need to develop a plan for how you are going to complete everything. This can be accomplished by writing out a plan starting with listing all the available days you have to complete the tasks. This could be the whole week Sunday to Saturday, or a specific number of days. Next, you will need to determine how much time you will have to work each day, and decide what your goals will be for each day. This is only a general plan, so do not get anxious if you do not meet your goal for a certain day. These goals can be adjusted throughout the week if it takes more or less time than you anticipated to complete certain things. Making a plan early on can help reduce feelings of stress and being overwhelmed by assignments later in the week. Once you have your time planned out, the tasks will feel more manageable, and you will have a sense of accomplishment after meeting your goals. See next page for examples of weekly plans and checklists.
Chunking
When you are assigned a long-term multi-step project, it may feel like a lot of work at first, and can seem stressful. Chunking is a great strategy for attacking large assignments that involved breaking the project down into smaller, manageable pieces or chunks. This can be achieved by making a list of all the steps or parts to the project, for example, choosing a topic, research, drafting, revising, creating a poster or visual etc. You can even break down your draft into parts such as introduction, supporting paragraphs, conclusion etc. Once you have broken everything down, you can decide what you will complete each day or week depending on the lengths of the assignment. Chunking ensures that all parts of long-term assignments get completed on time, and do not cause you stress.
Organization tips
Staying organized is instrumental in being productive and managing your time well. Simple things such as knowing where all your materials are and having them in one place can drastically increase the amount of work you are able to accomplish. When you first get an assignment, it may be helpful to make a list of all the materials you will need so that you can acquire them and set them aside in one place for easy access while working. Trying to locate materials can be time consuming, and takes away from the time you have to complete your assignment. Organizing your materials prior to starting will make a huge difference in your productivity and reduce frustration around not having what you need to complete an assignment or project.
