4.3 Time Management Strategies

What is Prioritization?

It is an act of allocating time where it is most needed and to assign specific time for tasks based on their identified need or value. For example, if you have a paper due tomorrow and a quiz in three weeks. What do you prioritize? The paper, as it is due first. It is critical for students to identify their priorities in order to successfully manage time.

How to identify your Priorities?

Make Certain You Understand the Requirements of Each Task

One of the best ways to make good decisions about the prioritization of tasks is to understand the requirements of each. If you have multiple assignments to complete and you assume one of those assignments will only take an hour, you may decide to put it off until the others are finished. Your assumption could be disastrous if you find, once you begin the assignment, that there are several extra components that you did not account for and the time to complete will be four times as long as you estimated. Or, one of the assignments may be dependent on the results of another—like participating in a study and then writing a report on the results. If you are not aware that one assignment depends upon the completion of the other before you begin, you could inadvertently do the assignments out of order and have to start over. Because of situations like this, it is critically important to understand exactly what needs to be done to complete a task before you determine its priority.

Make Decisions on Importance, Impact on Other Priorities, and Urgency

After you are aware of the requirements for each task, you can then decide your priorities based on the importance of the task and what things need to be finished in which order.

To summarize: the key components to prioritization are making certain you understand each task and making decisions based on importance, impact, and urgency.

Using The Eisenhower Method to Prioritize

One way to help you identify your priorities is with the “Eisenhower Box,” a tool to help evaluate urgency and importance. Items may be placed at more precise points within each quadrant.

The “Eisenhower Method” stems from a quote attributed to Dwight D. Eisenhower: “I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”

Using the Eisenhower Decision Principle, tasks are evaluated using the criteria important/unimportant and urgent/not urgent, and then placed in according quadrants in an Eisenhower Matrix (also known as an “Eisenhower Box” or “Eisenhower Decision Matrix”). It is important to understand the difference between urgency and importance. An urgent item needs to be dealt with immediately. An item that is important needs to be dealt with but may or may not needs to be dealt with immediately. Tasks are then handled as follows:

1. Important/Urgent quadrant items must be taken care of immediately. Examples include:
   • Crises like accidents
   • A flat tire
   • A screaming baby
   • A broken water heater
   • Last minute deadlines
   • Pressing problems
2. Important/Not Urgent quadrant items need to be accomplished but have an end date or due date that isn’t urgent or pressing. Examples include:
   • Homework
   • Studying for an upcoming exam
   • Exercise
   • Planning an upcoming trip
   • Time with friends, family, and relationships
3. Unimportant/Urgent quadrant are items that can often feel urgent but they really aren’t. Although they may feel like they need to be attended to immediately, they are not very important and can actually wait. Examples include:
   • Text messages
   • Social media alerts
   • Some phone calls
   • Junk mail
4. Unimportant/Not Urgent quadrant are are your time wasters, things that are not important and not urgent. Examples include things like:
   • Television
   • Video games
   • Hanging out with friends (not planned social events)
   • Web surfing

 

As you can see, the Urgent/Important category (#1) needs to be attended to first and should top your list of priorities, followed by the Not Urgent/Important category (#2). You can imagine that the Category #1 is a stressful place, with emergencies and crises, and one you would like to avoid. Life will bring you plenty of Category #1 items so try your best to keep things out of that category. Work productively in Category #2 so items don’t unnecessarily end up being urgent. For example, a paper or a test shouldn’t be urgent, as they aren’t last minute crisis.  The more you focus on Category #2, the more you accomplish with less stress.

Learning How to Complete Tasks On-Hand

Another important part of time management is to develop approaches that will help you complete tasks in a manner that is efficient and works for you.

Knowing What You Need to Do

It is important to know that many learning activities have multiple components, and sometimes they must occur in a specific order. Additionally, some elements may not only be dependent on the order they are completed, but can also be dependent on how they are completed.

To illustrate this we will analyze a task that is usually considered to be a simple one: attending a class session.

In this analysis we will look at not only what must be accomplished to get the most out of the experience, but also at how each element is dependent upon others and must be done in a specific order. The graphic below shows the interrelationship between the different activities, many of which might not initially seem significant enough to warrant mention, but it becomes obvious that other elements depend upon them when they are listed out this way.

Many of your learning activities are dependent on others, and some are the gateways to other steps.

Knowing How You Will Get It Done

After you have a clear understanding of what needs to be done to complete a task (or the component parts of a task), the next step is to create a plan for completing everything.

This may not be as easy or as simple as declaring that you will finish part one, then move on to part two, and so on. Each component may need different resources or skills to complete, and it is in your best interest to identify those ahead of time and include them as part of your plan.

What follows is a planning list that can help you think about and prepare for the tasks you are about to begin.

1. What resources will you need?  Resources are not limited to physical objects such as pen and paper but also include information, it can be a critical resource as well. In fact, one of the most often overlooked aspects in planning by new college students is just how much research, reading, and information they will need to complete assignments.
2. What skills will you need? Poor planning or a bad assumption in this area can be disastrous, especially if some part of the task has a steep learning curve. No matter how well you planned the other parts of the project, if there is some skill needed that you do not have and you have no idea how long it will take to learn, it can be a bad situation. An example could be using a specific program to create a video for an assignment , or using a computer software to create a poster.
3. Set Deadlines  Of course, the best way to approach time management is to set realistic deadlines that take into account which elements are dependent on which others and the order in which they should be completed.
4. Be Flexible It is ironic that the item on this list that comes just after a strong encouragement to make deadlines and stick to them is the suggestion to be flexible. The reason that being flexible has made this list is because even the best-laid plans and most accurate time management efforts can take an unexpected turn. The idea behind being flexible is to readjust your plans and deadlines when something does happen to throw things off. The worst thing you could do in such a situation is panic or just stop working because the next step in your careful planning has suddenly become a roadblock. The moment when you see that something in your plan may become an issue is when to begin readjusting your plan.

The Importance of Where You Do Your Work

A large part of ensuring that you can complete tasks on time comes to setting up conditions that will allow you to do the work well. Much of this has to do with the environment where you will do your work. This not only includes physical space such as a work area, but other conditions like being free from distractions and your physical well-being and mental attitude.

1. Right Space
2. Distraction Free
3. Working at the Right Time

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00G0b8si6qA&t=99s

Establishing A Time Management System

Now that you’ve evaluated how you have done things in the past, you’ll want to think about how you might create a schedule for managing your time well going forward. The best schedules have some flexibility built into them, as unexpected situations and circumstances will likely arise during your time as a student.

For every hour in the classroom, college students should spend, on average, about two to three hours on that class reading, studying, writing papers, and so on. Look at the following scenarios to get an idea of how many hours you should be spending on your classes outside of class time.

• An 8 hours a week course over a 14-week semester = 8 hours a week in class + 16-20 hours outside of class each week
• A 3 hours a week course over a 14-week session = 3 hours a week in class + 6-10 hours outside of class each week

You can use this formula to estimate the number of study hours you will need in class and out of class  for each course you take in the semester. Look back at the number of hours you wrote in Activity 2 for a week of studying. Do you have two to three hours of study time for every hour in class? Many students begin college not knowing this much time is needed, so don’t be surprised if you underestimated this number of hours. Remember this is just an average amount of study time—you may need more or less for your own courses. To be safe, and to help ensure your success, add another five to ten hours a week for studying.

Creating a Planner

Now that you know what you need to be spending your time on, let’s work on getting it put into a schedule or calendar. The first thing you want to do is select what type of planner or calendar you want to use. There are several to choose from.

Check out the samples here and then  use the templates to create your own plans:

• Centennial College Library (https://libraryguides.centennialcollege.ca/ld.php?content_id=35597805)

Download the Planner and Weekly Schedule templates from the Centennial College Library Guide here:

• Planners, Schedule templates and More (https://libraryguides.centennialcollege.ca/c.php?g=592409&p=5115401)

Establish A To-Do List

People use to-do lists in different ways, and you should find what works best for you. As with your planner, consistent use of your to-do list will make it an effective habit. Use a digital tool or pen and paper to create your daily to-do list.

Here are some more tips for effectively using your daily to-do list:

• Be specific: “Read history chapter 2 (30 pages)”—not “History homework.”
• Put important things high on your list where you’ll see them every time you check the list.
• Make your list at the same time every day so that it becomes a habit.
• Don’t make your list overwhelming. If you added everything you eventually need to do, you could end up with so many things on the list that you’d never read through them all. If you worry you might forget something, write it in the margin of your planner’s page a week or two away.
• Use your list. Lists often include little things that may take only a few minutes to do, so check your list anytime during the day you have a moment free.
• Cross out or check off things after you’ve done them—doing this becomes rewarding.
• Don’t use your to-do list to procrastinate. Don’t pull it out to find something else you just “have” to do instead of studying!