University Library
Do you concentrate best in the morning or
are you hopeless until after lunch? Are you
always too tired to think properly after
10pm or do you love that quiet time to with
no distractions? Work out which times are
best for ‘thinking’ activities (reading and
writing) and which are best for ‘admin’
activities (searching and organising).
Are you a sprinter or a marathon runner?
Do you work best with a deadline looming
or does that stress you out? Acknowledge
your working patterns and plan your time
accordingly.
Use a grid or a diary
(paper or online) to
work out when you
are busy and when
you could work.
Even half our slots may be useable (see
right). Be realistic – give yourself some
time off!
For each module, find out when your
deadlines are and put them in your diary.
Using all the information you have from 1-
4 above, and working backwards from
your deadlines, fill in the available times in
your diary with ‘SMART’ targets (see right)
for each session.
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable,
Attainable, Realistic and Timely. So,
instead of planning to “do research” or
“write some of essay” during a 1 hour slot.
You should be more specific i.e. “read and
make notes on two articles” or “write
paragraph on point B (200-300 words)”.
That way you know exactly what you need
to do and you will know that you have
achieved it. This is better for keeping
motivated too.
It is easy to waste slots of 10 mins here or
20 mins there because we don’t think it is
enough time to get anything done (waiting
for things to start or people to arrive,
sitting on a bus etc). These time fragments
can actually be usefully used if you plan
ahead. For example, you can use the time
to find a suitable article on your phone or
tablet; read the abstracts of a couple of
papers; brainstorm initial ideas for an
essay etc. Keep a notebook with you or
use a notetaking app like EverNote and
you can fill these wasted moments and
save time when you could be working on
something more complicated later.
When you are too tired to work on
something complicated, use the time to
organise your workspace, your notes, your
files etc. It will save time in the future (as
you can find what you need) and make your
feel more able to work on the ‘thinking’
tasks when you are more rested as you
won’t be tempted to tidy up instead.