Unit 3: Create an Effective Time Management Plan
This unit will help you create a reasonable time-management plan that emphasizes an appropriate amount of time for you to spend on school-related work. One of the most interesting activities in this unit will help you accurately identify how you spend the hours in your week. If you work through the diagnostic questionnaires included in this unit honestly, you may be surprised to learn how much time you spend doing (or not doing) ordinary activities. Many peoples' first estimates about where their time goes are inaccurate, so do not be surprised if you have to adjust your first guess.
One of the most difficult life lessons to learn is that, as adults, we simply will not have enough time for everything we want to do. This unit will help you come up with a realistic plan that prioritizes the things that are most important to you based on the values and goals you have already identified and schedule time to ensure that you can accomplish them. Next, you will learn about strategies for sticking to your schedule in the face of distractions, frustration, procrastination, and non-academic personal commitments. Finally, you will see how two basic tools, a calendar planner and a daily to-do list, can be powerful assets in your time-management plan.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 7 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- identify your time personality, explain how you currently spend your time, and brainstorm how you can spend your time more effectively to achieve your academic goals;
- define personal time management strategies that may work for you;
- list strategies to combat procrastination;
- use a calendar planner and daily to-do list to plan ahead for study tasks and manage time effectively; and
- employ tools to achieve effective personal time management.
3.1: Where Does Your Time Go?
Read the introductory text and the text under the heading titled "Time and Your Personality." Be sure to complete Activity 2, "Where Does the Time Go?," to estimate how you spend the hours in your day. In the next subunit, you will gather data about how you actualy spend your personal time using the Daily Time Log in Figure 2.4 of this reading.
Compare your estimates from Activity 2, "Where Does the Time Go?," with the actual data you have collected in your Daily Time Log. This comparison will help you develop a better understanding of how you can adjust how your time is spent. In your notebook, jot down a few sentences recording your reactions to your data and brainstorming how you might adjust your time usage.
You can use this web media resource to review Activity 2, "Where Does the Time Go?" in the reading assigned beneath Subunit 3.1 above. The point of this activity - whether you complete it in the reading or with this web resource - is for you to estimate where you think you spend your time. After you have completed this activity, spend time during one day using the Daily Time Log in Figure 2.4 of the reading to collect data about how you actually spend your time. The time you spend to faithfully record your activities in the Daily Time Log will pay off in the long run as you come to understand your own time personality better. Keep the data you collect. You may be surprised to learn that your time estimates may not have been very accurate!
3.2: Where Should Your Time Go?
Read the text from "Time Management" through "Time Management Strategies for Success." Make sure to complete Activity 3, "Where Should Your Time Go?" Use these to further assist you with determining what your typical week should look like, in order to ensure that you have scheduled enough time to stay on track.
3.2.1: Determine How Much Study Time You Need
Using the data you collected about your own time use and needs, use this interactive log to create a reasonable weekly schedule that includes enough time for the activities that are most important for you to prioritize in order to reach your college goals.
3.2.2: Strategies for Using Time Wisely
Read through this PowerPoint presentation. Each slide reviews and expands upon information covered in material you have read so far.
This is an extremely valuable exercise. Read the introduction and answer the questions based on your own self-evaluation; then, click on the "Calculate my Total" button. Be sure to read not only the personalized score interpretation but also the evaluations below that are based on various time management skills. No matter how much attention you give to these skills over your lifetime, you will always benefit from reviewing these strategies.
3.3: The Battle with Procrastination
As you read through the section below the "Battling Procrastination" heading, you will become more familiar with the causes and symptoms of procrastination and learn ways to beat it. In your notebook, list some examples of personal challenges with procrastination that you have encountered in your academic life so far; then, brainstorm a few ways you can combat these challenges in the future.
Reflect on your own academic experience: Are there any instances you can remember when you were procrastinating but didn't know it?
What are some of the reasons why people procrastinate? Make a list outlining some of the reasons you may procrastinate in completing your college coursework.
Write a few sentences in your notebook about which strategies for beating procrastination may be the most helpful to you personally, and why.
3.4: Using Calendar Planners and To-Do Lists
Read the section below the "Calendar Planners and To-Do Lists" heading. You will see an example of a weekly planner in Figures 2.5 and 2.6 and will read about how to use this tool effectively. You will also read about how to use a to-do list most efficiently. While these topics may seem obvious, the text offers several useful tips you may not have considered previously.
3.5: Special Tips
3.5.1: Students Who Work
Read the section entitled "Time Management Tips for Students Who Work" to learn how to balance attending school and working a job.
3.5.2: Students with Families
Read the section below the "Time Management Tips for Students with Family" heading to learn how to balance family obligations with your undergraduate workload.
3.5.3: Student Athletes
Read the section under the "Time Management Tips for Student Athletes" heading.
3.6: Evaluate Your Time Management Knowledge and Skills
If you have not yet done so, now is time to pull out your academic planner or calendar and put it to work. Based on what you have learned in this unit, review the syllabus for this course and any other course/s you are taking. Record class times, appointments, study sessions, project milestones, goal action items, deadlines, test dates, and other important dates or activities. Once you have completed this activity, do not forget to update and review your planner or calendar as you meet your goals and set new ones.
Unit 3 Assessments
How well do you manage your time? Complete this interactive time management quiz. Be sure to record and assess your score using the scoring guide provided for you. Then, study the key components of time management that are outlined below the quiz and consider how these components are reflected in your own time management habits.
Using the interactive scheduling feature, develop a reasonable weekly timetable that will allow you to successfully balance schoolwork with healthy physical and social activities, as well as any work and family commitments you may have.
Now that you know how you spend the hours in a week, use this interactive site to help you build a calendar of when to get everything done.
- View
Now that you have completed the time management exercises above, use your results to answer these questions.