4 Managing Your Time

You may have noticed that, in high school, you could complete a lot of your work during class time. However, in university, you need to schedule time for readings, homework and groupwork on your own time.

It’s not surprising that the number one reason that students book appointments with academic peer mentors and academic coaches is to get support with time management. (Book appointments on OSCARplus > Student Success Centre > Appointments > Academic Skills).

How do you manage your time?

Top time management tools

Term schedule

Let’s start with the big picture. Once you get your course syllabus from each course, use a four-month calendar to mark important due dates. Then, you can identify when you’ll be really busy during the term. This’ll help you work backwards and break up large tasks into manageable pieces, thereby helping to alleviate stress.

Weekly schedule

Many students find a weekly schedule very beneficial. It can show you when you have some extra time, and you can even schedule in some time to relax. Here are some tips on making an effective schedule.

• Block off classes, tutorials and labs.
• Include your job, volunteer and family responsibilities.
• Block off time for each course (readings, research, writing, office hours, study groups, etc.). Aim for two hours for every hour of lecture time (i.e., 6 hours of lectures, 12 hours of course work time).
• Set time aside for upcoming assessments.

Don’t forget, weekly schedules can (and should!) change each week. Set time aside to create your next schedule. Try our weekly schedule template.

Daily to-do list

These lists help you prioritize tasks for the day. Your top priority tasks should be at the top of your list. You can also use these lists to help you stay motivated because it feels great to cross something off your list! Then, you can take that feeling of accomplishment with you throughout the day.

You can use them to include small things that aren’t on your weekly schedule or you can jot down small tasks that are part of bigger assignments for the day or week.

More time management strategies

• Check in with yourself often and see if priorities and goals have changed.
• Stick to it! Try to view school as a job and have the same commitments to getting tasks done.
• Find someone to help you stay accountable, like an academic peer mentor.
• Avoid distractions and understand why you may be procrastinating.
• Break large assignments into small pieces. Bonus: This will also help you stay motivated!
• Use those small blocks of time in between classes to start reading journal articles or review lecture notes.
• Plan ahead with some meal prepping, collecting materials and doing house chores.
• Avoid multi-tasking.
• Reward yourself with a nice treat, some screen time or a chance to hangout with a new friend.

Distractions

When working with students, we recommend they find small chunks of time during the day and complete some tasks. What can you do with 30 or 60 minutes?