Managing Your Time

In college, managing your time is one of the most crucial things to be aware of. College success comes with careful planning and consistency in carrying your routine out. Failure to balance your social and academic life can lead to serious consequences that I would rather not talk about. Instead, here are some tips on how you can start developing a healthy schedule:

1. Create an "autopilot schedule," that is, create a schedule that runs by itself. There are two kinds of tasks: regular occurring tasks (homework reading, making prep sheets...) and non-regular occurring tasks (essays, projects...etc). Assign your regular occurring tasks to specific times in the week, and focus on completing the task during the assigned time slot.

For example,

Reading for literary analysis class - Mon, Weds, Fri after class
Prepping for chemistry - Tues, Thurs before class
Working with TAs to discuss problems & solutions - 2 hours, Wednesday afternoon
Workout at gym - Tues, Thurs, Sat, Sun 9 a.m. for 1 hour

2. When creating an autopilot schedule, remember to:
- identify what work you do every single week
- not put too much work in one day

3. It's helpful to assign working periods to specific events (ex. lab work right after chemistry class, studying right before history class). This way it's easier to get started on your work.

4. The main reason why this kind of schedule can help you is that you can focus on the big, non-regular occurring tasks (ex. papers, projects) and not have to worry about the other regular occurring tasks, because they're all taken care of. During your free time, you can focus on your getting your big projects done. Of course, you can also get involved socially.

Creating a routine can not only help you balance your social and academic life, but also prevent things from geting hectic and out of control.


Source: http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/04/07/monday-master-class-how-to-reduce-stress-and-get-more-done-by-building-an-autopilot-schedule/

If you have time to spare so that you can save up more time in the future (and possibly have your life changed), check out this one-hour lecture by Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch!