Finding it difficult to fit study in with the rest of your life? It can be tough to juggle watching lectures, assignment deadlines, and weekly readings with your work and family commitments, so time management is an essential skill every student needs to master.
We’ve compiled some of our favourite tried and tested techniques for time management that you’ll need to be a successful student.
Create a calendar: Don’t get caught out by surprise assignment deadlines or important administrative dates. Creating a calendar helps you manage your time commitments well in advance. Whether you’re using a digital calendar or a planner on your wall, make sure to include key dates from your unit outlines and the Academic Calendar to keep on top of what’s coming up.
Identify your priorities: There’s only so much time in a day. Take a few minutes to evaluate your tasks and consider which priorities are most important. You might prefer to alleviate some pressure by checking off small tasks quickly or tackle the biggest task to feel more relaxed about impending deadlines.
Find your optimum study method: Not everyone studies the same. Work out the best time and situations for you to study efficiently. You might find that studying in a library may keep you focused and on task, or you might prefer studying at home with background music. Knowing what works for you will make you a more effective student.
Break up your study pattern: The optimum human concentration span is no more than 20 minutes. But this doesn’t mean study for only 20 minutes at a time, it means you need to break the pattern. For example, if you are reading, then you change the task by underlining, highlighting or making notes.
Be realistic with your time: While planning out your tasks is important, you never want to plan so much that you don’t actually leave yourself enough time to complete any work! So it isn’t always necessary to plan out every detail of an assignment at the start, some people just need to get started to get on a roll.
