I’ve been thinking a lot about how to manage my time this year, especially now that I’ve decided to take on another paper at university. For many of you, this may be the first time you have been given the freedom to spend your time however you want. Knowing that you are the one in charge of your spare hours, how do you choose to spend them? This is where planning ahead can become your best friend.
You may find that you will get more done if you can schedule out even just a few days of your week. Somehow starting your assignment and finishing the first paragraph doesn’t seem like such a big commitment when you’ve put it into writing that you’ll begin on Tuesday. Smaller goals are easier to achieve than one large goal. Allowing yourself time between viewing your drafts of an assignment can give great insight into what you may have missed, but will also reveal the silly mistakes that you didn’t notice before. More importantly, make sure you reward yourself after completing such a task.
Planning your week out doesn’t have to be completely uni focused either; you can schedule in activities that make you feel good. It’s important that you do schedule these things into your agenda, as when we are stressed we often forget that we still need to care for ourselves as well. Walk a dog, read a book, or (my personal favourite) make a big bowl of pasta and catch up on the latest episode of Married at First Sight. I think the key here is balance. Finding that balance is hard, but I found the best tool was to plan a few days a week and stick to that plan. Everything else will fall into place.