Planning

You have probably used various kinds of planning tools before, including a daily or weekly planner, a month-at-a-glance planner, and so on. In this section, we introduce four planning tools and the thinking strategies that go along with each one: a Monthly Planner, a Weekly Objectives List, a Weekly Planner and a Time Log. It is important to keep in mind that the purpose of scheduling is not to enslave you to your planner, but rather to record your decisions about when certain things should happen.

The Monthly Planner

The monthly planner can be used as a time-bound memory aid, tracking major deadlines and exam dates, appointments, important anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, vacations and so on. But, you can get more out of the monthly planner if you use it to record interim deadlines and forecast upcoming busy periods as final deadlines approach. A properly completed monthly planner will indicate upcoming busy periods, show whether there is room in the plan for new tasks, and help you assess whether you are on target to achieve your goals. Let's say for example that you had an upcoming exam in your Introductory Microeconomics class. Start by entering the date of the exam so you don't forget it. Next, think of the tasks that comprise the goal of doing well in the exam, think about how long each step of the task should take, and enter a series of interim deadlines for each step between the start of your preparation for the exam and the exam date itself. Use these interim deadlines as milestones to indicate the progress of your study. (If you're prone to breaking your own interim deadlines, it can help to reinforce these by making appointments with a peer, an instructor, or a teaching assistant.)

Weekly Objectives List

If your current approach to time management is governed by to-do lists, then you'll be interested in the weekly objectives list. Think of the weekly objectives list as a muscle-bound to-do list. In essence, the weekly objective list is a to-do list with additional features to further decompose tasks into smaller units and to record time estimates for the task. Let's say for example that one of your goals for the year was to maintain your honours standing and that you had a series of exams coming up including one for first year Introductory Microeconomics (see below). You might set an objective to score a B+ or A grade on the exam and list this on your objectives list. Your next step would then be to consider a variety of study activities that would prepare you well for the examination. You might begin by entering your first activity, "complete readings and review lecture notes", in the activities column. Once you have entered your activity it is important to assign it a time estimate, in this case we've assigned this activity a three hour block of time. This block of time reflects an important principle in time estimating; when estimating time you might want to add time to the amount of time you think it will take you to complete the task. Try applying a factor of 1.5 to 2.0 to the estimate and refine your estimates from there on the basis of your experience with similar tasks. This is important because we tend to estimate without considering possible difficulties or interruptions. Once you have entered the first activity for study, you would continue with the others you have in mind. The final two columns on the form allow you to track whether or not you have scheduled and completed the activities you have listed. Your next step is to carry the listed activities, along with their associated time estimates, to your weekly planner to be scheduled.

The Weekly Planner

Take a look at your weekly planner. What do you have written in it? Likely, you list lecture times, tutorial times, laboratory times, times for extracurricular activities, and various other appointments. If this sounds like your schedule then you are probably under-using another very versatile time management tool because many of the most important tasks (homework activities which move you toward your goals) are left out of the picture. The implication of this should be clear: If it isn't on the schedule it won't get done.

Stepping from the weekly objectives list to the weekly planner is easy. Using the time estimates for the activities on the weekly objectives list as guides find a block of time of appropriate duration in your schedule. Then write in the activities one at a time in priority order until you have either scheduled all of your activities or you have run out of time spaces. A good idea here, if it seems you'll run out of time spaces, is to start scheduling the most important activities first. For instance, consider the following activity: "Complete readings and review notes." This activity might take 3 hours and could be placed almost anywhere in the week where you have time and where you'll likely be able to work. You might schedule three one-hour blocks, two 90 minute blocks or one three-hour block, depending on your preferences. The key her is to associate the specific task to specific times, avoiding making a schedule where the tasks are too closely scheduled or where important activities are assigned to unrealistic work times.

Construct a plan for each week, following the rhythm of your courses that meet weekly. To help make planning a routine activity, pick a regular day each week to schedule. Even with unexpected occurrences that can impact your schedule you assist yourself in making decisions that are governed by your desire to reach your goals. Without using a schedule you may be governed by your moment-to-moment moods which may lead you to make time decisions that take you away from your goals. Once your week is planned you will experience clarity of focus, your tendency to be distracted will be reduced and you will be certain of your reasons for doing the things you had planned. Committing yourself to a plan you've made represents a renewal of your motivation for the goals and tends to increase your time on task.

How much time is enough?

The time you spend on task has some relationship to the quality of work you end up producing. A good gauge to follow is to perform 2-3 hours of school work outside class for every hour of class time. Yes, this means for a full-time student with a 15 hour of class per week load the recommendation is to do between 30 and 45 hours of homework each week. Yes, that's a big jump, especially if you breezed through high school or previous years of university on less. This estimate simply reflects the time it actually takes to learn effectively at university (ISR, 1995a; ISR, 1995b). But this number shouldn't mean that you completely forego time for yourself. It is important to have some personal time. Even though you may work a part-time job (and doing so isn't necessarily counter-productive to success at school (ISR, 1995d)), you'll need to take some time for yourself and for recreation each week. A starting guideline might be something like 10% of your week, or 17 hours. What is more important than these specific targets is that you spend enough time on school work to ensure that you're successful and that you spend enough time outside of school to ensure that you have a healthy balance in your life. Keep in mind that using a planner in the way we're describing is a learned skill that will take time and patience to master. Keep your focus not on making the perfect plan or on executing every plan flawlessly, but on learning from your good and bad experiences and using this knowledge to improve subsequent plans.

Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:46:37 AM (Atlantic Standard Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] |