A timetable you can stick to

Whether you’re a first year or a veteran undergraduate, good time management means more fun, less stress. It’s best approached at two levels: macro and micro. Macro focuses on the big picture: work, sport, social activities, chilling out, admin; micro on specific tasks.

For both macro and micro, wallcharts or screen timetables are excellent tools, but only if they’re based on reality, not an ideal scenario. For a realistic timetable, use the first couple of weeks of the new term to note down how long things actually take. For example, timetabling 20 minutes for laundry is optimistic, and four consecutive hours reading in the library equally so. And we all underestimate the time we waste browsing online. So don’t guess. Time your laundry. For assignments, note the time you spend researching, writing, re-writing, editing and proofreading. Of course no two tasks, either domestic or academic, are exactly the same, but with real-time information to hand, you’ll have a much better chance of creating timetables you can stick to.

Katie Grant
11 October 2018