Time Management & Planning During Studying

This academic semester has been very difficult for me as it is my first time in college and everything is different. In college we get assignments back to back and we barely get time to study for exams and rest which in my case ended up pilling up all together resulting in anxiety and lots of stress. The cause of my assignments pilling up was because I did not know how to manage my time accordingly and I did not have a plan for when I was going to start and finish each work handed to me. When I caught up on what was happening, I set out a task for myself to manage my time better and to set out a plan. “Time management is how to divide, organize and plan your time between different types of activities. Good time management allows you to work wiser with less stress in the process so that you get multiple things done faster, even when time is tight and pressures are high. Failing to manage your time effectively can cause stress and anxiety”. When I applied this strategy to my work/learning I noticed that everything went smoother and I was not that stressed anymore, I had time to do my assignments, study and I had time for myself too which was great.

What time management and planning brought to me during this semester:

• It helped me not to miss on deadlines for my assignments and hand them in on time because missing on deadlines can result in not being able to stay in school. As before when I did not manage my time I would struggle and get little sleep the night before they’re due and not do my work correctly.
• I had more energy to get through the day, got more time to rest my mind and sleep, also got the chance to eat better and take regular walks.
• I had less stress, I had time to relax and think my paper through without having to worry about other papers due, I had everything under control and nothing was pilling up.

3 things I did that helped me managed my time:

• I got rid of all my distractions like Instagram, YouTube and other distractions to help me focus and concentrate on my work primarily.
• I used a calendar on my phone to plan out when all my assignments were due and I set out a reminder that would alert me two days in advance before they were due just to make sure I had everything done to be able to recheck before uploading my work. I also set up alarms so I wouldn’t spend too much time on one subject , for example, id set my alarm for two hours so when the time was up id witch to the next subject and I took breaks , it’s important to take breaks while you’re studying, especially if you’re feeling tired and frustrated because working too long on a subject can decrease your performance and motivation and make you weaker to continue studying.
• I made sure I got enough night’s sleep to make sure my body and mind is rested and fresh for the next day.

Coming from secondary school into college I noticed I had more work to do and needed a new study strategy. In secondary studying was easier as we had enough time and all we had to do was read directly from our books and take notes while here in college we not only need to read from different books from the library and take notes but we also need to make lots of research and add references which is just a lot , so I pictured id have to change my whole study structure to one more suitable as in college there’s just too much information to take in all at once.

How I incorporated my new study skills into my learning:

• I started taking my laptop to lectures as I figured I’d be able to type faster what the lectures were saying when writing with the hand I was slower as I focused more on having neat writing rather than actually writing down the information presented to me.
• When studying from books and websites id merge all that information into one essay rather than having information scattered all over the place, before just copy and paste what I saw from books to my notebook then id have way too much information which I did not even end up reading as it was too much to even memorize, I also now try to write everything in my own words as memorizing something in your own words will actually stick to your brain rather than something someone else wrote.
• I am a visual learner which means I learn more by what I see rather than what I hear, I learn more when there are colourful images and when taking down notes in secondary I tend to add colours, designs and use diagrams as they helped me memorize the pages better, for example, ill be studying something related to time management so when taking down my notes id draw a little clock on the side and when going into exams Id think back on the little clock I drew and then remember that I wrote about time management so I end up remembering the definition. Since this worked pretty well for me then I incorporated this skill into my study strategy this semester and so far I’ve been able to study without a bother.
• I set up a nice quiet study space that was comfortable and distraction-free that helped me stay concentrated, happy and inspired while doing my work as I was in a comfortable environment.
• After studying I took quizzes to see how much I knew about the topic. Quizzes are great to find out what you still need to learn. Practice quizzing using multiple-choice items involves retrieval processes in that students must correctly recall learned information, and search from a list of possible answers to determine if any of them match the retrieved information (Jang et al., 2014, Smith and Karpicke, 2014)

REFERENCES

1. Mindtools.com. (2019). What Is Time Management?: Working Smarter to Enhance Productivity. [online] Available at: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_00.htm [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019].
2. Karpicke, J., Blunt, J., Smith, M. and Karpicke, S. (2014). Retrieval-based learning: The need for guided retrieval in elementary school children. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 3(3), pp.198-206.