Organizing Your Schedule

By October, most colleges have handed out academic timetables to their new and returning students. Unfortunately, these schedules almost always leave students overestimating their free time. We fail to factor in the hours that we spend studying privately, exercising and socializing. Without knowing everything that needs to be done, we tend to do the bare minimum and ultimately end up not getting much done at all. Having an accurate understanding of your free time will not only increase your productivity, but also decrease your stress levels. In this post I’m going to outline one way that you can organize your schedule in order to help you get more done.

Starting Off

To begin with, get an empty weekly schedule in front of you. For Mac users I recommend iCal, and for those with windows I suggest Windows Calendar. The reason why I think that computer calendars work best is because they allow you to move events around if something doesn’t fit, and repeat an event weekly.
The next step in organizing your schedule is to make a list of all of your priorities. Sometimes it’s useful to specify how often you would like something to happen. Some examples might be:

• Publish a blog post three times a week
• Go running once a week
• Go grocery shopping
• Research summer internships
• Go to volleyball practice
• Meditate

At this point, you should also come up with a rough idea as to what time you’d like to wake up every morning and what time you’d like to be finished with anything work related. When I helped my sister with her schedule, for example, she decided that 9am would be a good time to wake up and that she wanted to stop working by 6pm. This frees up all of her time after 6pm to do whatever she likes. I recommend a time frame similar to this as it should allow you time to get everything done and provide you with some downtime when the day’s over to go out or relax.

Filling It In

Once you’ve gotten this out of the way, start filling in your schedule with all compulsory events. This includes meals, lectures, tutorials, sport practice etc. Afterwards, review how your schedule is looking so far and work out which days seem to have the most ‘free time’. By ‘free time’ I mean time that’s not taken up by events that are absolutely essential (i.e. lectures). This will indicate which days are best to assign to your other activities.

The next thing that you should do is find time to do some private studying. Although this is optional, I recommend it because it’s always good to have a specific time to study each module. I advise two one hour slots a week per module dedicated towards essay writing or studying. Some people may require more than two one hour slots, and some may prefer less- it’s up to you to decide what you think will be most productive, as well as what you think you’ll realistically be able to do. There’s no point giving yourself these slots if you end up ignoring them!

Finally, the last step in organizing your schedule is to find a way to fit in all of your other priorities. Do this in order of importance to avoid leaving things out that matter to you. When doing this, keep in mind the time it will take you to get from one place to another. Arranging to study in the library from 1-2pm, and go for a run between 2-3pm is unrealistic; getting from the library to your house, changing, etc will take a certain amount of time which needs to be acknowledged. It might make more sense to plan on going for your run from 2:30pm-3:30pm, leaving half an hour for you to get home and change.

The Challenge

Once you’ve finished organizing a schedule, you should see how much free time you actually have. Your schedule may appear to be packed, but keep in mind that it’s only illustrating the time period which you have chosen to work. After 6pm (or whatever time you chose to end work), you’re free to do as you like. If you choose to stick to your schedule, then remember that it’s flexible. If, for example, you find that the afternoon is actually not the best time for you to practice playing the guitar, move your schedule around to fit it into your mornings.

Although this system seems spectacularly obvious, you’d be surprised how many people overestimate their free time. I challenge every student to do this as an exercise. I guarantee that you will achieve more while decreasing your stress levels, resulting in an all round more peaceful student life.

Photo by Michel Fillion