Managing Your Studies: Managing your time

If you find it hard to keep on top of your studies, you are not alone. This is a challenge for many students, and for a variety of reasons. Your studies may involve mixture of  studying on campus and online. You will need to negotiate deadlines and manage a mixture of self study and taught sessions which may be live online or face to face on campus.

This section explores strategies that you may find helpful for managing your studies. However, bear in mind that everyone is different, so what works for others may not work for you. Try out a strategy. If it works, keep using it. If it doesn't, adapt it or try another. You may also find that strategies work at different times or in different circumstances,  so tools or approaches that have worked in the past for you may need reviewing or replacing.

The following actions may help you with managing your time:

Action 1: Key dates

• Add assessment dates into Outlook or any other calendar that you use.
• Add taught sessions to your calendar, include locations or online links.
• Identify preparatory tasks required for live sessions or deadlines and add these to your calendar/ planner for the next 2 weeks. Add a reminder to do this again in a week.
• Add in non-study tasks so you are planning holistically, e.g. exercise, rest, meals, social events.

Action 2: Develop your planning skills

• Explore different types of planning methods and pick an approach to start with.
• Explore approaches to prioritising and time management skills.
• Notice where your time is going and when you study well. Use this information for future planning.
• Be kind to yourself - celebrate when you manage your studies well; learn from what works. and what doesn't work. Give yourself permission to try different approaches.
• Identify when you need any more help and where you could get this.