The week/month/term ahead - Day 11

I hope your desk is feeling a little more livable and the piles of paper are not oppressing you as much!  In a few days we'll talk about the miscellaneous and sentimental items and get them sorted out.  Then you should have a comfortable place to work that supports your academics.

Higher-Level Time Planning

This strategy is designed to help you organize what needs to be done, but more importantly, to help overcome procrastination by giving you motivation to finish tasks to avoid the 'traffic jam' of two things due on the same day.

Decide on your time period first. When is the next busy time you have many things due?  Or alternatively, when is the next time you get a break and a rest?  Since it's late January while I write this, I'm just over two weeks to reading week.  I'll be leaving town to go home for that week, so there is a lot to do before then!

First grab a piece of paper (either scrap or in your notebook) and roughly draw out the weeks and days in your time period.  Write in the days of the week at the top and number the days... it doesn't have to be a pretty calendar, it's just for planning!  In each day jot down the number of hours of immovable events you have - classes, tutorials, labs, and that kind of thing.  Meetings might be included if they are mentally demanding - I definitely include meetings with my supervisors!  If there are things that aren't so tightly time-boxed but still have to be done a specific day (I have some marking like this), add them in.

Now take a different coloured pen and note which days are your days of rest (remember, one a week!).  In the same colour, put in any parties, social events, workouts, or leisure activities you're committed to.  Finally, in a third colour, put down the number of hours available for work and circle it.  But wait!  The number of hours you put is calculated by taking 5 and subtracting the number of hours of school activities you have in a day.  If you see that there are social events that are going to impact your ability to work or available time, adjust the number down even further.

Now if you are an undergraduate, you might have 15-25 hours of classes, tutorials, and/or labs a week already, and you'll notice I'm only suggesting 30 hours total a week.  Feel free to look back on your previous week and try to remember how many productive, focused hours you had after your day's activities.  You might have a 3-hour class on Tuesdays, but it's an elective and you don't feel too tired after it, so you can add a couple of hours to those days.

As an example, check out the 5th on my two-week schedule.  I have 3.5 hours of office hours and tutorials, so I wrote 1.5 and circled it.  These circled hours are your hours you can count on for productive, focused work.  Total them up and put them at the bottom of the page.  I had 34, but then realized that my tutorial prep should have been accounted for earlier, so then I had 30.  Under that write the big tasks you need to do in that time frame - these will probably be assignments, but it could also be big chunks of marking, research, or writing. I have two big things to work on, so I just assigned them 15 hours each.

You should notice a couple of things while you do this process.  The fiction that you have 24 hours a day for the next two weeks should start to dissolve - having only 15 hours to work on my 5-question assignment, for example, means 3 hours per question.  That's not a lot of time to do the research, figure out the answers, and write it up, especially if I get stuck and have to consult with others.  You should also start to feel a sense of urgency, that you have to make the most of those hours.  For example, if I get home from my seminar on Friday and think "ah, it's the end of the week, I'll take a break...", then that's three fewer hours available.  It's not meant to scare you, but rather to motivate you to make the most of those hours in each day when they occur.

You can post this over your desk if you like, or throw it in the recycling, or keep it in your notebook - whatever makes sense to you! If you have found it useful, you can create a To-Do in Habitica with a due date corresponding to the beginning of your next busy period.