Time
Management
Time management is
the act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount
of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness,
efficiency or productivity. Time management may be aided by a range of skills,
tools, and techniques used to manage time when
accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals complying with a due date.
This set encompasses a wide scope of activities, and these include planning, allocating, setting goals,
delegation, analysis of time spent, monitoring,
organizing, scheduling, and prioritizing. Initially, time management referred
to just business or work activities, but eventually the term broadened to include
personal activities as well. A time management system is a designed combination
of processes, tools, techniques, and methods. Usually time management is a
necessity in any project development as it determines the project completion
time and scope.
Creating an effective
environment
Some time
management literature stresses tasks related to the creation of an environment
conducive to real effectiveness. These strategies include principles such as :
- "Get
Organized" - paperwork and task triage
- "Protect
Your Time" - insulate, isolate, delegate
- "Achieve
through Goal management Goal Focus" - motivational
- "Recover
from Bad Time Habits" - recovery from
underlying psychological problems, e.g. procrastination
[procrastination:In psychology, procrastination refers to the act of
replacing high-priority actions with tasks of lower priority, or doing
something from which one derives enjoyment, and thus putting off important
tasks to a later time.
Motivation: is the psychological feature that arouses an
organism to action toward a desired goal and elicits, controls, and sustains
certain goal directed behaviors.]
Setting priorities and goals
Time management
strategies are often associated with the recommendation to set personal goals.
The literature stresses themes such as -- "Work
in Priority Order" - set goals and prioritize
- "Set
gravitational goals" - that attract actions automatically
ABC
analysis
A technique that
has been used in business management for a long time is the categorization of
large data into groups. These groups are often marked A, B, and C—hence the
name. Activities are ranked upon these general criteria:- A – Tasks that are perceived as being
urgent and important,
- B – Tasks that are important but not
urgent,
- C – Tasks that are neither urgent nor
important.
The
Eisenhower Method
A
basic "Eisenhower box" to help evaluate urgency and importance. Items
may be placed at more precise points within each quadrant.
All
tasks are evaluated using the criteria important/unimportant and urgent/not
urgent and put in according quadrants. Tasks in unimportant/not urgent are
dropped, tasks in important/urgent are done immediately and personally, tasks
in unimportant/urgent are delegated and tasks in important/not urgent get an
end date and are done personally. This method is said to have been used by U.S.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and is outlined in a quote
attributed to him: What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is
seldom important.
TIME
MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
Many
times college students have not had to manage their time efficiently prior to college because they are bright and
weren't really challenged in high school.
The situation often changes in college because everyone who goes to
college did well in high school but the full range of grades are assigned. Some students who received A's and B's in
high school are now receiving C's and D's in college. Those receiving lower grades are probably no
less capable than those receiving higher grades but often their study skills,
including time management, are less effective.
If
you can identify with any part of the above paragraph, working on improving
your time management may be beneficial to you.
In
this program, you will be given the opportunity to assess where your time goes
and make some decisions about changes you would like to make to use your time
more effectively. There is no one right
way to manage your time; however, it is important to get to know yourself so
you can make good decisions about how to use your time. We all have 168 hours in a week to use as we
wish; however, some people make better use of this time than others. If you perceive that this is an area of your
life that needs improvement, this program is for you. Throughout the program, you will learn ways
to use your time more effectively.
ACTIVITY
To begin this program, on
a piece of paper make a list of the top five ways you waste your time.
Suitable answers
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TIME
MANAGEMENT QUIZ
Answer
each of the following questions:
1.
Do you estimate how many hours you will need
to study each week?
****** Yes/ No
2.
Do you meet assignment deadlines?
****** Yes/
No
3.
Do you begin working on semester long
projects early in the semester?
****** Yes/ No
4.
Do you set aside time for planning and
scheduling?
******
Yes/ No
5.
Do you write a daily "to do" list?
****** Yes/ No
6.
Do you prevent social activities from
interfering with your study time?
****** Yes/ No
7.
Do you have a job that requires fewer than 10
hours a week?
****** Yes/ No
8.
Do you
set specific goals for each study period?
****** Yes No
9.
Do you begin your study time with your most
difficult assignment?
****** Yes No
10. Do you
complete most of your studying during your most productive hours each day?
****** Yes No
11.
Do you
find yourself completing tasks at the last minute, or asking for extensions?
****** Yes
No
12.
Do you find you have to take work home, in
order to get it done?
******
Yes/ No
13.
Are
you stressed about deadlines and commitments?
****** Yes/ No
14.
Do you think of being a full-time student as
you would a full-time job?
******
Yes/ No
FOUR STEPS TO IMPROVED TIME
MANAGEMENT
There
are four strategies that can be very useful for managing time more
effectively. They are:
1.
Create
a semester schedule
2.
Assess
and plan your work load each week
3.
Adjust
your plan each day
4.
Evaluate
your schedule
Strategies
for accomplishing each of these tasks will be discussed on the next few pages.
Where Does Time Go?
It
may seem like there aren't enough hours in the week to get everything
done. That may be true or it may be that
you are not using your time as efficiently as possible. Toassess where your time goes, complete the
inventory below. Be as honest with
yourself as you can. Some of the items
are done every day so those will need to be multiplied by 7 to arrive at a
weekly total. One item may be done any
number of times a week so you'll need to multiply that one by the number of
times each week you do it. After you
have responded to all the questions, you'll have an opportunity to see how many
hours remain during the week for studying.
1.
On
the average, how many hours do you sleep in each 24 hour period, including
those afternoon naps?
2.
On
the average, how many hours a day do you engage in grooming activities?
3.
On
the average, how many hours a day do you spend on meals, including preparation
and clean-up time?
4.
How
much time do you spend commuting to and from campus and how many times do you
do this during a week? Include the
amount of time it takes to park and walk from your car or the bus stop to
class.
5.
On
the average, how many hours a day do you spend doing errands?
6.
On
the average, how many hours do you spend each week doing co-curricular activities
(student organizations, working out, church, etc.)?
7.
On
the average, how many hours a week do you work at a job?
8.
How
many hours do you spend in class each week?
9.
On
the average, how many hours per week do you spend with friends, going out,
watching TV, going to parties, etc?
Now add the number of hours you are spending
each week engaged in daily living activities and school activities.
There
are 168 hours in a week.
Then
Subtract to find out how many hours remain for studying, since this is not one
of the activities included above.
WHAT DO I DO NEXT?
How
many hours a week do I need for studying?
Most
universities recommend that students study at least two hours outside of class
for every hour spent in class, although some recommend even more. Many students are taking 15 hours per
semester, which probably means spending about 15 hours a week in class. Therefore, studying at least 30 hours a week
outside of classes would be recommended. Combining the 15 hours a week in class
and the 30 study hours outside of class, many students will need to plan to
spend about 45 hours a week on school.
My
assessment indicates that I don't have 30 hours a week to study but I need to
study this much to make the grades I want to make. Can you reduce the amount of
time spent on other activities? If you
were going to reduce these hours, what would you have to do to make this change
in your schedule? Can you eliminate one
or more activities from your schedule?
What could you eliminate?
I
do have 30 or more hours a week to study but I don't use them effectively. The
next page in this program discusses several strategies for making your schedule
work more effectively. As you read this
page, think about which of these strategies might be most helpful for making
better use of your study time.
MAKING YOUR SCHEDULE WORK
Here
are some strategies that you may find helpful to try if your schedule is not
working as efficiently or effectively as you would like. When trying any new strategy, it is important
to practice it regularly and to practice it long enough that you have a way of
evaluating whether or not it is helping.
Tests are good ways to evaluate new study strategies. If you begin a new strategy after one test
on which you didn't perform as well as you would like, try a new strategy until
you receive the results of the next test to get an idea whether the new
strategy is working for you.
1
Identify your best time of the day
Studying
at your best time of the day, whether that is morning, afternoon, or early
evening, will enable you to complete your assignments in less time. Research studies show that what we can
accomplish in 60 minutes when we're less fatigued will take as much as 90
minutes to accomplish when we are more fatigued.
2
Study difficult or boring subjects first
Study
subjects that are more of a challenge to you first when you are less
fatigued. Save subjects you like to
study for later, when you are feeling more tired but need to continue to study
to keep up with your work. It will be
easier to find the motivation to study something you find enjoyable when you
are tired than for a subject you dread studying.
3
Use the same place to study every time
Studying
in the same place each day is like going to class in the same room. You begin to associate a particular activity
with a particular location so when you are in that location, you and able to
focus on the task at hand more quickly.
Studying on your bed or in your bedroom is not advised because you
probably associate your bed and bedroom with sleeping, not studying. It's too easy to take those 10 minute naps
that turn into 2 hour naps.
4
Use the library
Libraries
are good places to study because this is the only activity we do in this
environment. If there are reasons you choose not to use the library, try to
find another location outside of your room that provides a good study
environment and is relatively free of distractions.
5
Avoid distractions
Many
things can provide a distraction to studying if we are looking for ways to
procrastinate. Earlier in this program,
you identified your top five time wasters.
For the next few weeks, try to find ways to reduce the frequency with
which these distracters are interfering with your study time. This might mean that finding another place to
study would be helpful.
6
Use waiting time
If
you use public transportation to commute to and from campus, there is probably
some waiting time involved. This is a great
time to study discrete pieces of information such as learning vocabulary for a
foreign language class or memorizing a chemical reaction sequence. Write this information on note cards and
carry them with you so you can study your cards during your waiting time.
7 Treat school as a full-time job
Try
to accomplish as many of your school tasks as possible within a concentrated
period of time, such as 8 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. If you use these hours either for attending
class or studying, you'll have much more free time in the evenings and on the
weekends to spend time with friends.
Your classes are likely to get the amount of attention they require as
well. It doesn't mean that you'll never
need to study in the evenings or on the weekends because there will still be
crunch times and you probably will.
However, treating school as a full-time job and adopting the hours of a
full-time job will probably result in better, more efficient management of your
time.
So
far in this program, you have had the opportunity to:
·
Identify
your top five time wasters;
·
Identify
strengths and weaknesses in your time management practices;
·
Learn
strategies for making a daily, weekly and semester schedule;
·
Learn
how to evaluate your time schedule;
·
Assess
where your time goes; and,
·
Learn
some strategies for improving your time management.
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