Student Weekly Tips: Managing your academic workload
Having properly started second semester, assignments can begin piling up; this week’s student weekly tips is all about methods to manage your workload at university.
Time Management — how do you manage your time?
“I think there are a lot of interesting ideas emerging about time management. We are moving from a top-down idea of management to more mutual management. What this means for us is that, perhaps, we ought to view ourselves more as people we need to negotiate with and delegate tasks adequately. It is not easy to understand how you work best, so, at the moment, I am trying to understand myself better. I am tracking how, when and where I spend my time. This will hopefully help me understand at what times I do my best work, how long tasks take me and whether I tend to prefer some tasks over others. I created myself a timesheet and did weekly reviews to decide how to spend the next week based on the previous one.” — Sara, Biotechnology
“When I was doing my degree, I used Google Calendar to manage my schedule, creating ‘events’ for lectures and seminars, as well as for my part-time job, yoga classes, playing sports and social events. I would block off chunks (hours) of time to dedicate to working on assignments, for example writing the introduction to an essay, which would be the title for the event. Under ‘details’, I would then put in a few bullet points to break the main task into smaller sub-tasks. Certain life admin, like doing the laundry, would always be done at a certain time (Sunday mornings!), so that it just became a habit. For less regular things, I would create ‘tasks’ to be done on certain days (or even certain times if I had too many during any one day and wanted to prioritise), which I could then ‘mark completed’ when done. This system works fairly well for me but time management is one of those skills that you’ll always be better at some days than others, depending on your emotional state and what’s going on in your life. Even the best-laid plans can fall by the wayside! So don’t fret too much if you’re feeling overwhelmed by it all and just take one step at a time.” — Olivia, Psychology
“Because I study part-time and work for the rest of my week, planning my studies has the added difficulty of trying to fit work and uni around each other. I find dedicating specific days to work and study where possible incredibly useful. I did a training course once which spoke about how when you have multiple responsibilities, switching from one to the other takes time — you have to ‘change gears’ as the saying goes. The trainer called this ‘picking up and putting down’, and the time you spend doing that is time you could be spending actually doing one of your two projects. Therefore, by allocating all of my work shifts across two days as opposed to three or four, it means that not only do I have more days to dedicate entirely to uni, but I avoid that ‘picking up and putting down’ time which can hurt productivity.” — George, Urban Design and International Planning
“The most effective method I have found for planning my time is using a ‘day to a page’ diary which breaks each day into hour time slots. This allows me to plan out exactly how much time I am going to spend on each task and helps me to avoid clashes between commitments. I also find this helps me to stick to taking breaks or fitting in other activities like going to the gym, as I am much more confident that I can get my work finished when I can see the amount of time I have set aside throughout the week. This method also helps me work more efficiently as it has shown me when I am most productive during the day and how long it takes me to complete certain tasks, giving me more realistic expectations of the amount of time I need to set aside for them. It’s had a really positive impact on my stress levels as I used to give myself long and unrealistic to-do lists at the start of each day that I never managed to get through, which led to me feeling overwhelmed and stopping myself from having breaks. Now, I am much more productive and manage to find more time to step away from my work and have a healthier work-life balance whilst still being able to meet deadlines.” — Lily, History
“I use a calendar on my phone to manage my time. However, I only put in slots for lectures, work, society activities and meetings. These are things that are time-specific so I cannot move them around. Everything else I plan around these set times. For example, if I know I still need to get a uni assignment done, I will have a look at my calendar and see where I have the freest time between the slots and plan accordingly. I do not take note of this in my calendar, as I find that I can quickly lose an overview of where I need to be at what time if I add too many things. To keep track of my uni assignments, I simply write a list with all my coursework deadlines, which I tick off once I complete them.” — Isabella, Materials Science & Engineering
Resources on planning your studies
“Finding Notion has been one of the best things that could have happened for my productivity. It is a software used for note-taking and managing your resources and time. With the ability to link tables, ‘pages’ (i.e documents), lists as well as different media makes a really fantastic user experience. Notion works like my brain — it can link up to other pages, which saves you from scrolling through your Word or Endnote lists when you want to find something similar. It allows you to build large tables full of sub-pages to help you better understand where you find information, what it links to and why you chose it. For example, I have a page called ‘My Reading list’. On this page, I have a column for ‘type of reading material’, ‘title’, ‘one-sentence summary’, ‘how it was introduced to me’, ‘rating’ and ‘categories’. You can decide what the columns mean and select restrictions for what is in your table. An example would be a book I recently read called ‘Debt’ by David Graeber. In the title column, I would insert the title and restrict this column to hold only pages. As the title of the book now would be a page, I could type my reading notes in this page and it would all be linked within my reading list. Another awesome Notion feature is the ability it gives you to ‘@’ things. Recently, I was writing my literature review and needed to keep a brief note in my document of articles that would be useful to reference later. With the ‘@’ feature, I could directly link my notes to check the factual accuracy of my document when I make the final draft. If you are searching for a central management system for your work, Notion is the one.” — Sara, Biotechnology
“Trello is a free productivity tool where you can create various ‘lists’ that let you add to-do lists, images, links and more. You could create a ‘list’ for each of your modules and different cards that link to your lecture slides, revision notes. You can create boards that multiple people can have access to, but I mainly use it as a more advanced version of my phone’s memo app.” — George, Urban Design and International Planning
Setting up your study space & staying focused
“The most important thing for me to be productive is to have a clear and clean desk, rid of any distractions or mess. Those 5 minutes I spend cleaning my desk before a long study session saves me hours in productive time. Short breaks during long study sessions help me a lot!” — Raghav, Mechatronic Engineering
“I prefer studying at home where I am more comfortable and everything that I need is easily accessible. When I am setting up my study space, I start by making sure I have everything I need, such as my notes, chargers or a glass of water, so that once I start working I can remain focused for a good chunk of time without having to keep stopping to go and get things. If I am studying in the library or somewhere where there are more distractions like in a cafe, I find that I am most productive when I can continue with a task that I have already started, as I am much less likely to be distracted or procrastinate if I am picking up on something that I am in the middle of working on and know what I need to do next. Wherever I am studying, the most important thing for ensuring that I work efficiently is starting the day with a to-do list that includes even the smallest of tasks so I have a plan of exactly what I need to do, and I am also somebody who feels much more productive when I can see I am making progress by ticking things off my list!” — Lily, History
“I like to have a certain routine when it comes to studying, so I’ll go to one of the libraries on campus. Being around other students tends to have the effect of focusing my mind. Also, I generally just find them nice places to get on with work! I’m not the best at keeping my desk at home tidy — it nearly always seems to be full of clutter! So being able to go to a new environment and have a clear desk space helps to fill me with a peaceful state of mind in order to be able to study effectively. Some students like to set up their own study spaces in their bedrooms, and this can be an advantage during exam season when libraries become very busy spaces!” — Olivia, Psychology
“When it comes to studying I prefer going to places like the library or the AGLC on campus, as when I am at home I get more easily distracted or would rather rest. In the study spaces on campus it is also helpful to see everyone around me studying and working hard, which motivates me to do the same. Libraries have the benefit of a large desk space, which helps when I work with multiple notes.” — Isabella, Materials Science & Engineering
“If you are like me, you do not necessarily need a specific study space or a totally clutter-free environment to study in. I do some of my most focused work in the strangest of places — empty lecture halls, corridors, on trains, or while waiting. I do not think studying necessitates long preparation. I have known people who managed without arduous tidying or pristine conditions. Sometimes, the best way to prepare a study space is to prepare your mind. In my opinion, there are two forms of preparing the mind for studying. One is long-term and the other is short-term. Long-term prep involves adequate sleep, hydration, movement and eating enough. Short-term prep is more difficult. For me, it involves immersing myself in the task at hand. This is easier said than done; nevertheless, possible. I tend to do this by imagining what the task involves and the best ways of doing it. If something is bothering me and preventing me from doing a task, I will jot it down in my ‘Quick Notes’ on Notion. That way, it is easier to see whether this is something that should be done immediately or it can wait. Usually, you’ll find, it can wait.” — Sara, Biotechnology
Thanks for reading this week’s tips, we’ll be back next week!
