i. Learning to Manage Your Time
Now that you have spent a few weeks navigating the waters of university life, you’ve probably realized how important managing your time effectively is to accomplishing your goals. When you have a long-term goal and break it down into mid-term and short-term goals, it leads to the question, “What do I need to do today in order to achieve my goal?” This question is at the heart of time management. Your goals and values guide how you spend your time and resources. Having clearly defined goals with specific deadlines leads you to be deliberate in planning your time and makes it easier to establish an effective time management system.
In this module, we’re going to focus on how to skillfully manage your time so that you can successfully juggle all of the school, work, family, and social aspects of your life.
Where Does Your Time Go?
Before we dig too deep into time management tools, let’s get a snapshot of how you are spending your time right now. Get out some paper, and for each of the activity categories listed, write down your best estimate of how many hours you usually spend in a week. Use last week as your guide.
Committed Time: Regularly Scheduled Activities
- Scheduled In-Class Time (in-person / synchronous online)
- Work
- Other
Maintenance Tasks: Required Tasks for Personal Effectiveness
- Study Time (reading, homework, assignments, online class work, etc.)
- Sleeping
- Cooking/Eating
- Shopping
- Chores & Errands (laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc.)
- Getting Dressed & Ready
- Personal Hygiene (bathing, hair care, etc.)
- Commuting Time (traveling via car, bus, bike, etc.)
- Exercise
- Other
Discretionary Time: Time for Yourself or Others
- Family Time
- Group Activities (clubs, religious activities, etc.)
- Hanging Out with Friends
- Events (parties, concerts, etc.)
- Streaming TV Shows/Movies
- Video Games
- Social Media Scrolling & Internet Surfing
- Texting & Phone Calls
- Hobbies, Crafts, Etc.
- Other
Total Hours Per Week Spent on All Activities Above: _____
So, how did you do? Was your number over or under 168 hours?
Why 168 hours? That is the exact number of hours you have each week. If your estimate was higher than 168, go back through your estimates and consider where you may have overestimated. If your estimated hours total was less than 168, consider where you might have spent that extra time.
