Managing Your Time & Resources
Learning requires time and material like books, notes, and so on. Therefore, in addition to the work of actually learning your course material, you also need to manage your time and resources effectively.
Choosing a system for managing your time and resources
When choosing a method for organizing your time and all of your, well, stuff, you need to consider what you're managing, what you want to accomplish with it, and what you can maintain over time.
1. What you need to manage
For example, do you need to schedule studying around work or other obligations? Does one of your courses involve reading a bunch of journal articles you need to keep organized? Are you taking your notes on paper or digitally?
2. What you want to do with your system
You want to find the things you need and finish your assignments on time, but what are your other priorities and goals? Do you want to manage your time to reduce stress? Would you feel more "on top of things" if you could see all of your documents on your desktop, or would you prefer to see only a few folders when you log in?
3. What you can maintain
Time management and organization require upkeep: even the most perfect setup will fall apart without ongoing work. Rather than doing a major overhaul, try to think of small, gradual changes that will be easier to sustain. It can also help to choose a system that works with your current resources and habits (e.g., using Drive to organize your documents since you have a Google account through your CUE email address, using a paper agenda if you are easily distracted when you check your phone).
The 6 Habits of Highly Organized People
Video - Memorize AcademyWhy so many ADHD resources?
Many resources in this section were made for people with ADHD, but struggling with time management, organization, or motivation is not necessarily a sign that you have ADHD. The skills covered here fit under the category of executive function skills. Everyone uses these skills in their daily life, and everyone struggles with them at times. This is not to say that "everyone is a little ADHD," though. People with ADHD tend to experience more, and more severe, symptoms of executive dysfunction than neurotypical people, and those dysfunctions impact multiple areas of their lives throughout their lives.
So you don't have ADHD just because you procrastinate. That being said, because ADHD impacts skills that a lot of other people struggle with as well, strategies for managing the impact of ADHD can be useful for a lot of people.