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Time Management

In university, you are responsible for how you spend your time. Classes only account for 9-15 hours per week, and since academics should be treated like a full-time job, what are you doing with the other 35-31 hours?

#1 Analyze

Break down your time to see how much of it you have, but also what you’re spending it on. Classes, work, the gym, eating. These are activities that gobble up the time we have each week. Once we know what we’re spending our time on, can we then adjust.

  • Use the 168 hour handout to do this
  • 24 x 7 = 168 (the total number of hours each week)
  • Be honest. You might find you’re spending quite a bit of time on social/fun activities While it is important to do things you enjoy, you need to be reasonable about the amount of time you’re spending on them
  • Next, fill out the Weekly Schedule. Read the Making a Study Schedule page on how to do this. This will help you figure out what time you have to study

 

#2 Itemize

Next, you need to identify and list the tasks you need to complete and by when you need to complete them.

 

#3 Prioritize

Once you’ve identified everything you need to do, you need to rank those tasks in terms of their importance.

  • An assignment due tomorrow will be of higher importance (or priority) than an assignment due next week
  • An assignment worth 30% of your grade will be of higher importance than an assignment worth 5%, even though both are due the same week

 

Time is a valuable resource and you want to make sure you are investing it on the tasks that matter most to yield the best results. Check out the Tips on Time page for more resources.