Systems for managing your time
Monitoring yourself; consciously plan and control how much time you spend on specific tasks to increase efficiency.
- Set up a calendar with deadlines and timeslots.
- Plan milestones to keep yourself on track.
- Set daily reminders to get you started.
- Timebox what is important to you besides your studies!
- Prioritise between your tasks – you do not have time for them all!
- Plan for 50-80% of your time – you will be surprised how much you can miscalculate, even if you have tried something once or twice.
However, it can be difficult to estimate how long an activity will take if you are time blind. It can be challenging to stay on a schedule if you struggle with managing your attention. It can be very hard to let a task go if you are “in flow”
Alternating attention is the ability to shift focus to another task on purpose.
Divided attention is the ability to work on more than one task at a time.
Can I make it work? No! I try to manage most of my time by using habits and obligations. Time boxing is not my strong suit, so it has to be social obligations. Otherwise, I’ll just work for fun.
My perception of “time blindness” (I am SO time blind!) is more shift-fatigue/importance-blindness, a short-sightedness. I really want to finish first and now I am in flow..
My problem is getting to where it makes sense to make notes. To regulate myself, I make notes in the form of
- braindumps
- Ideas
- to-do-lists
because otherwise, my working memory is flooded with emotions or it’s occupied with things I don’t want to forget instead of learning.
Making notes actively engages you with the materials to review and connect, and it assists you in synthesising ideas. It helps you understand what you are learning and enables you to organise and clarify your thinking.