Finding Time for Study
Learning to manage your time effectively is an important life skill.
Everybody has different aspects of life to balance, work, family, personal life and studies. In order to benefit from your studies, you will need to feel that you have some measure of control over your study time.
Gaining control of your time requires some thought and planning.
Ineffective time management means you get less done.
This, in turn, can lead to stress and anxiety, which are common problems when trying to juggle the demands of a busy life. By developing your time management skills, you can alleviate many of the triggers for negative stress and work towards finding a positive and healthy work/life balance.
Developing a Study Timetable
Developing and following your own personalised learning timetable can be helpful to your studies and your motivation for a number of reasons:
• A timetable adds focus, pattern and structure to your study.
• Timetabling will enable you to review each section of your studies, establishing the key tasks involved and identifying the time slots when you will engage with them.
• Creating a learning timetable will help you to overcome procrastination and unnecessary dithering. You will find it useful to develop some sort of personalised system for organising your study time. This will allow you to decide what needs to be done and when. Without such a structure a lot of time can be wasted procrastinating or being distracted by elements of the study process. You might find yourself starting one thing and then another and wondering whether they are getting anywhere.
The aim of planning a study timetable is to identify or create regular time slots for study, ideally when you will be at your most alert, free from distractions and able to concentrate. Think about planning your study as an integral part of your life. This train of thought can go a long way to help you to maintain a positive attitude and a healthy work/life balance.
• It is important, when planning, to realise that study does not take place in a vacuum but needs to be organised around your other fixed commitments, like work and/or family. This may involve looking at regular activities that could be moved, done less frequently, delegated or deferred whilst you study.
• Depending on your circumstances it may help to involve other people, colleagues, peers, family and friends in the planning process to, where possible, gain their understanding, cooperation and support. When you create a study timetable that you can share with others it will help them to feel included and involved. It will also act as a reminder to them that there will be times when you should not be disturbed.
• It is important to schedule ‘free-time’ into your timetable. Such time can be used for relaxation, and social activities, things that help you achieve a balance. Having ‘free-time’ slots also means that there will be an element of flexibility built into your timetable. If a task needs extra time or there are some unexpected developments, you have a built in a way of coping.
Using your Study Timetable
Once you have decided when you will (or can) study, you will need to look at the specific tasks involved, what you will actually be spending your study time doing. Try to allocate the tasks that require most concentration, writing assignments for example, to study slots when you will be most alert and free from distractions. Tasks such as skim-reading books, periodicals or internet resources, to note if there are any relevant sections, may not require as much concentration.
Setting Personal SMART Goals
Goal setting is the key to successful time management skills. By setting yourself goals you enable yourself to focus on key learning tasks relevant to the area you are studying, as well as helping to clarify the way forward. Goal setting, when used in conjunction with a personal study timetable, will provide you with a structured pathway that can help guide you through your studies in a focused and calm way. Goals give direction to your personal learning and development and will enable you also to track your progress, boosting your confidence and morale.
All goals should follow the S.M.A.R.T. acronym - that is goals should be:
Specific – Make goals clear and precise, to the point. Exactly what do you want to accomplish?
Measurable – Think of ways to measure how you are progressing with your goal – how will you know when the goal is achieved?
Attainable – You need to make all your goals realistic and obtainable. If you set yourself unrealistic goals, then your self-esteem will take a knock when you can’t achieve them.
Relevant - Make sure your goals are actually relevant – do not spend time working on achieving something that you don’t need to. Relevance also means thinking about the order in which you work on goals.
Time Scaled – Finally, you need to set timeframes, or deadlines for achieving goals. You should make allowances, however, for the fact that timescales may well change as you progress – some things, inevitably, take a lot longer to achieve.