Time Management

Question 1

Good afternoon, everyone!

Answer 1

My name is Ben Reitz, and I’m the College Prep Zone coordinator for the Red Rocks Learning Commons and Tutoring Services department.

I’ve been invited by Ellie and by the staff of the TRIO department to come and share one of our modules on effective study and success strategies for students.

Question 2

We are going to get into that in a moment here, but…

Answer 2

…first I always like to mention that I prefer these presentations to be discussion-based, conversational and casual. So please feel free, to interject with comments, questions, or things to contribute as they occur to you. Also, if you are tuning in via Zoom, please feel comfortable with putting any comments or questions in the chat, which Ellie will moderate for us.

Without further ado, let’s crack in!

Question 3

Slide: What are effective study and success strategies?

Answer 3

We like to begin these discussions by defining Effective Study and Success Strategies in general.

For our purposes, these will be defined as [read definition]

Question 4

I really want to emphasize that final point….

Answer 4

…there will probably never come a time when the skills we develop for success in college are not useful, either in a professional/career context, in our relationships in personal life, or in higher levels of education, like graduate school.

So there are various benefits to developing these study strategies, and I am always excited to provide guidance in this way for students, and to gain insights from them.

Question 5

Slide: Effective Study Strategies Include:

Answer 5

There are six categories of effective study strategy that we like to cover with students in these workshops. The one we are going to cover today is “Time Management”. We’ll cover some specific approaches to effectively utilize time in order to set yourself up for long-term college success.

So let’s get right into it…

Question 6

Slide: Time Management, what is it?

Answer 6

In the same way as we defined effective study strategies in general, we like to begin with a solid definition of time management. When you hear the phrase “time management”, and I know we all do quite often, what comes to your mind?

Question 7

All great ideas! Yeah, when we hear that phrase “good time management”…

Answer 7

…we are likely to think of objects like calendars, planners, maybe alarm clocks, or habits like submitting work on time and so on…

Our “official” definition we’ll use for our discussion here today is [read definition].

Here, “systematic” and “organized” are the operative words. When we are doing effective time management, we are deliberately and strategically working to maximize the benefit from our time investments.

Question 8

So that definition is probably pretty intuitive, but we also find that it can be beneficial to…

Answer 8

…discuss why developing these time management strategies is important.

The main reason that making best use of the resource of time is so important is because…

Question 9

Slide: Time is a limited resource

Answer 9

Usually, when we think of resources that are valuable, we think of material things, but time is a valuable resource for the same reason that material resources are: it is limited/scarce.

Unlike most material resources, however, time is even more precious, because it is non-refundable. Once it is wasted, it is a “sunk cost”.

Question 10

This pie chart on the right shows…

Answer 10

…how an average college student spends this limited resource. Notice that there is a balance between the different categories of activity. One way to think of good time management is as a collection of techniques to keep one or two of these slices from dominating an outsized chunk of the whole pie.

Question 11

Slide: The Compound Benefits of Effective Time Management

Answer 11

The benefits of good time management are many, and they tend to reinforce one-another.

Question 12

The benefits start by making our use of time more efficient…

Answer 12

…What do we mean here by “efficient”?

…yes, basically this means putting in less of the resource to get the same amount or more benefit or productive output.

Question 13

By definition, this greater efficiency leads to enhanced productivity from the time we invest.

Answer 13

These techniques not only improve the quantity, but also the quality of what we produce with limited time.

Question 14

Our ability to produce more and of greater quality makes it possible to juggle multiple responsibilities/duties…

Answer 14

…which is different from our ability to do what is called “multi-tasking” [doing multiple tasks in the exact same moment], which we will discuss further in a while…

Question 15

Along with creating more opportunities for other productive projects….

Answer 15

good time management gifts us with more free time…

Question 16

..which, of course, includes more free time we may devote to leisure and rest, which…

Answer 16

reduces our sense of stress and anxiety, long term…

Question 17

And of course, the less stress we carry through life, the more focused our brains can be…

Answer 17

as it reduces what brain scientists call our “cognitive load”, or “cognitive burden”, which improves our focus and performance, setting us up for future success…

Question 18

Slide: The Positive Cycle of Good Time Management

Answer 18

So in a very powerful way, good time management practices produce an “upward spiral” [we’ve all heard of a “downward spiral”]. This is the upward spiral, where we start with greater efficiency in our use of time, work our way along the chain of these benefits, experience the ensuing success, and then, we feel a boost of motivation to stick to and expand our effective time management habits themselves.

Question 19

Slide: Getting Started

Answer 19

So hopefully by now I’ve convinced you of all the wonderful dividends that effective time management can pay out. But the question still remains: what are the specific things we can do to start developing good time management skills?

Question 20

There are four very simple but very useful activities that we can do to get the ball rolling on successfully optimizing our use of time…

Answer 20

The first is to put together what we call an “activity log”. The second is to conduct a “time inventory”. The third is to evaluate any “time leaks” or “time sinks” in our daily lives. The final one is to draw up a “master schedule”. We are going to go through each one of these now, and discuss the different benefits of using each.

Question 21

Slide: Activity Log

Answer 21

So what exactly is an activity log? This is when we start with time intervals (which, as you can see, are broken down in small chunks) and we meticulously fill in the activities that go along with each time interval, regard less of how short.

Question 22

Again, that’s a very detailed and particular outline of daily activities.

Answer 22

Notice how this sample activity breaks down the day even to the level of 10 or 15 minute activities.

Question 23

Benefits of this method are:

Answer 23

…first, that it can be great for very detail-oriented and compartmentalized thinkers/mindsets. It is also very helpful for those who prefer routine and meticulous planning. It’s not necessarily a time management style for everybody, but for some of this mindset, it can be very effective in providing detailed structure.

Question 24

Another great method is to conduct a “time inventory”.

Answer 24

Time inventories come from the opposite end of the process involved in creating an activity log;

In this method, we start with the activities we need to get accomplished in, a week, for instance, and then we calculate how much time we will need for each type of activity.

Question 25

Time inventories are great tools for diagnosing how realistic our current time commitments are.

Answer 25

This is because we know the fixed figure for the number of hours in the week. So if we perform that inventory, sum up all the time required to do each type of activity, and get more than 168 hours, we know we are over-committed.

Question 26

Because this can be such a great diagnostic tool for those starting to think about how to improve their time-management skills…

Answer 26

…we are going to actually conduct our own time inventories, in an activity together, right now.

I’m going to pass these out and give about 5 minutes to fill them in. For those who are tuned in via Zoom, I am going to have Ellie link this document, so that you can all follow along and engage in this exercise remotely.

Question 27

Okay, great work everyone! So let’s share out a bit…

Answer 27

…who found out that they were “over-committed”? I know I was the first time that I performed this type of inventory.

Anybody have extra time after the inventory was done? Admittedly, that tends to be more rare.

So as you can see, this can be a really eye-opening tool for diagnosing whether you need to rethink your approach to time management or how you prioritize time investments.

Question 28

Slide: Time Leaks

Answer 28

Another great method is to sit down and build a catalogue/list of time leaks in our lives. What do I mean here by “time leaks”?

Question 29

What are time leaks?

Answer 29

Right! Basically, a time leak is an activity that sucks away large amounts of our time, while being generally unproductive (and not even necessarily all that enjoyable)

Question 30

Good examples of common 21st century time leaks would be things like…

Answer 30

…excessive social media scrolling, excessive or obsessive upkeep with the news and current events, or binge-watching streamed tv shows.

Depending on the context, these may or may not be time sinks [for example, a social media coordinator for a company spends 8 hours a day on social media for a living], but these are very common examples for those of us in the modern era.

Question 31

Making a list of our own time sinks/leaks can…

Answer 31

…increase our awareness of the things that eat up all this time, and give us motivation to keep how much they absorb our limited time in check.

Question 32

The last of the four main methods we recommend for getting started with skilled management of time is to create a master schedule.

Answer 32

Master schedules are much like activity logs, in that they break down a roster of time intervals with corresponding activities. However, unlike with the activity log, this method breaks down into equal time intervals, and those intervals are devoted to general groups or types of activity, like “study” or “work”.

Question 33

Benefits of a master schedule include…

Answer 33

…that they are great for people with general or global mindsets. They also work well for those who still want their activities regimented and scheduled over time, but who need more flexibility than the most detailed breakdown that the activity log provides.

Question 34

In this specific example of the master schedule…

Answer 34

…you can see how this student has planned general groups of activities over a week. You’ll notice how much time they are devoting to study, which is consistent with the ideal for a college student - about 2 hours/credit hour taken/week.

Also, notice how these study blocks have been distributed over the whole week in periodic bursts, rather than very long stretches of time.

This is ideal, because it allows you the consistent review needed to keep material fresh in the long-run of a semester.

Question 35

Which of these time management techniques do you think would work best for you, given your personality and life commitments?

Answer 35

Affirm all responses…

Question 36

Slide: Additional Time Management Tips

Answer 36

Above and beyond the original four methods for time management and planning, there a several other general time time management tips we recommend to students. These include things like…

Question 37

Setting realistic goals

Answer 37

Thinking back to the definition of time management, we talked about these techniques being directed at short-term/long-term goals.

But it is critical that those goals are realistic; that we are honest about what we can accomplish. For example, it wouldn’t be realistic to expect yourself to study 16 hours a day. Even if it were possible, there would eventually be diminishing returns on what you could reap from spending so much time in hard study…

Question 38

Another good tip is to create daily to-do lists.

Answer 38

I do this every day, with ritual regularity. Importantly, we suggest making “closed lists”. What do we mean by a “closed to-do list”?

Yes exactly. A closed list means not adding more tasks until we are finished with those originally on the list. Closed lists keep us on target and focused, maximizing productivity and keeping us from being derailed by the desire to take on too much at once.

Question 39

We recommend addressing tasks we know are difficult for us first, and at peak energy times…

Answer 39

For me, getting physical exercise is very hard to feel motivated to do; I know that if I am going to work out, it needs to happen in the evenings, when I am at my most energetic, between roughly 4-8.

This is all about knowing your own body and brain and circadian rhythms, and using facts about those things to maximize the bang for your buck in spending your time.

Question 40

Another useful technique is breaking daunting tasks into more manageable ones…

Answer 40

There is a wonderful old saying: if you are gonna eat an elephant, do it (say it with me now…) one bite at a time!

For example, rather than trying to crank out a 12 page research paper in 6 hours, instead spend an hour one day on your intro and thesis, an hour the next day on your research, a couple hours on body paragraphs, and so on…

This not only makes the whole process less overwhelming, but it helps improve the quality of each individual portion.

Question 41

Another good rule to abide by is to minimize distractions that keep you from maximizing your benefit from your time investments.

Answer 41

What kinds of distractions might we mean here?

Exactly. Technology is a huge hinderer of my effective use of time. I am constantly tempted by the notifications on my smart phone, for emails especially.

In fact, I prefer to keep my device in another room entirely when I know that focus will be essential in getting the most from time spent on some task.

Question 42

Be flexible when necessary, but return to your planned schedule…

Answer 42

Sometimes, sticking to a closed to do list is simply not possible. Many times, my boss will come in an ask me to attend to something unplanned in an urgent way. The important thing, though, is to not let that interruption derail the entire plan for the day. This is best achieved by intentionally going back to the to-do list when your immediate commitment is over.

Question 43

A word about multi-tasking…

Answer 43

Humans are actually naturally quite bad at multi-tasking. We were instead evolved as “mono-taskers” and research shows we do not perform very well on either task on average when we take on two tasks in the same moment.

Oddly, many consider themselves great a multi-tasking, especially media-multi-tasking. But it just isn’t really true.

Question 44

However, humans developed tools/systems to make up for this short-fall: automated processes, like laundry machines and computers, make get more done while we are wholly focused on something else, possible.

Answer 44

Make use of these systems to optimize the efficiency of your activities over time.

Do homework while doing laundry or while uploading or downloading files.

This is what we mean by multi-tasking “where appropriate” - it means where we have automated systems to do one of the tasks.

Question 45

Finally, it is important for good time management that you periodically reward yourself, with fun and/or relaxation.

Answer 45

Unlike your laundry machine or computer, we are not automated systems. We need positive reinforcement for our productive behavior.

We become better motivated to be productive when we come to associate a pleasant “reward” - type experience (and the dopamine it releases in our brains) with a job well done, after the fact.

Train your brain to appreciate productivity by spending some time with a pet or loved one after a particularly grueling study session.

Adequate leisure actually increases our overall productivity. Much new research suggests that is true for whole economies, not just individuals.

Question 46

Do you all have any other favorite techniques/methods for practice effective time-management in your college lives?

Answer 46

Or in your personal lives?