TRANSCRIPT: Time Management: Strategies For Success

Speaker: Laurie Hazzard

Time Management: Strategies For Success 

My name is Laurie Hazard, and at the university where I work I’m responsible for all of the programs that are aimed at student success. One of the first strategies students need to be successful is the strategy of time management. But what I often tell students, it’s really not about managing time blocks, it’s about managing their behavior. So what we’re going to talk about first is the idea of behavior management versus time management and this idea of time on task.

Time On Task (TOT)

So what exactly is time on task? Time on task really addresses the question of how long will it take me to perform a particular task? So what I often say to students is experience breeds the ability to predict time on task. So, for example, I’ve had many experiences where students have asked me to write a letter of recommendation. I’ve written so many of them over the years that I can predict time on task pretty accurately with that task. Forty-five minutes is about how long it takes me to write a letter of recommendation.

So as a college student, you are going to have t learn to predict time on task for college-level activities, and there are differences between your time on task predictions from high school compared to college. So, for example, let’s say you’re assigned a research paper or a literature paper and you think back on high school and you think, well, when I had to write a paper for literature in high school it took me about two hours to write that literature paper. So it would be normal for you to predict two hours time on task to write a literature paper if you’re using your high school predictions. What often happens in the college environment is because the tasks are much more complex and complicated, it takes you longer to write a paper for a college-level class than it would have been for a high school-level class. So what happens sometimes is our time on task predictions are inaccurate when we’re coming out of high school and going into college. So what you’re going to have to do as a college student is readjust your time on task predictions based on your coursework in college.

Time Management is 3-Tiered

So in order to manage your time and behavior well, you’re going to have to really look at a particular time management system. And what I tell students is time management is in three tiers: the what you have to do, and that would be all the information included on your syllabus, the when you’re going to do it, and that would be looking at the time that you have during the course of the week, and how are you going to go about it. Are you going to make To Do lists, and are you going to look at your daily schedule? So there are three tiers to time management. The what, when and how.

So first we’re going to talk about the what. And again the what is professor imposed and syllabus driven. So what do I mean by that - professor imposed? It means that you have no choice about what the professor has assigned you over the course of the semester. That would include things on your syllabus like tests, quizzes, homework assignments. So in that way it’s syllabus driven. So you’re going to have to look at your syllabus and you’re going to have to see what your professor decided that you need to do over the course of the semester. And you’re going to have to plan that out for a semester.

 What I actually do in my classes is I give the students the assignment that I described to you, that is, taking all of the information from each of your syllabi and transcribing them into a master calendar.

But while you’re doing this, what you’ll want to make sure to do is to set concrete, specific goals. So right now we’re going to take a look at a calendar of a student who actually did a pretty good job with this assignment. And if you’ll notice, on Wednesday, for example, she put Chapter 8 Anatomy and Physiology, pages 124 to 129. What’s really good is that she had a beginning point and an end point of a particular assignment. Start with page 124 and end with page 129.

Most students when they’re setting up a calendar or when they are writing a To Do list will write something like, read Anatomy and Physiology.

Now I’d like to go back to that idea of time on task when we’re talking about this because let’s take reading five pages in a class like Anatomy and Physiology. You might look at that and say, ah, it’s going to take me about 15 minutes to read five pages. Does that make sense? Fifteen pages in five minutes? Really, if you think about a course like Anatomy and Physiology, the subject matter is so dense it might actually take an hour to master five pages of that complicated material. So what you have to do with all of your classes is read a couple of pages, see how long it takes you to do so, so you can accurately predict time on task for that specific assignment, and remember to set really concrete, specific goals for each day like this student did.

If you notice, too, with her calendar, toward the end of the week, on Thursday and Friday, she has five or six goals set for each day. And at the beginning of each week she doesn’t have as many goals set. What I’m guessing is this student probably has maybe an outside job or perhaps she’s involved in a lot of co-curricular activities outside of her classes. And for that particular week she had a lot of time on Thursday and Friday to get school work assignments done. And so for those days she didn’t set as many goals on these school assignments at the beginning of the week as she did compared to the end of the week.

Take a look at Tuesday, for example. She recorded, read Chemistry section 3.4. Again, a really concrete, specific goal. It wasn’t this vague, nonspecific goal that she was going to do just like “read chemistry.” She set a specific goal.

So this student has a chemistry quiz at the end of the week, so what she is doing is putting the large goal at the end of the week that she has a quiz, and then at the beginning of the week she is breaking down all of the little things that she has to do to accomplish that large goal at the end of the week. All those short-term goals that she has to do to meet the long-term goal.

So the challenge with this assignment is taking each of the pieces of information in your syllabus and begin to really think about setting specific tasks that you’re going to complete, with a beginning point and an end point, whether it be page numbers, section numbers of a text for example, however you’d like to divide up your reading.

So that is the what, and then if you notice, she decided when she is going to do each thing. What day of the week she is going to do each task. So what the assignment is and the when is the days of the week she is going to actually execute those assignments.

There are a couple of other things that you’ll want to consider when it comes to the when as well, and that is what time of day are you going to get things done. So we have the what, the entire semester, the when, which is the days of the week, and taking a look at the daily schedule, what times during the day are you going to get it done.

Differences in Syllabus Styles

One last comment that I have for you regarding taking all of your assignments and all of the information off of each syllabi and transcribing it into a calendar is that when you’re doing this exercise you’re going to notice that professors have different styles in terms of the way they record things on their syllabi. One professor may actually give you the concrete specific reading assignment so you’re not going to have to figure that out for yourself. So Professor Brown might say to you specifically that you have to read X number of pages on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. However, you might notice another professor, Professor Smith, just says, read Chapter eight and nine this week. And for that professor you’re going to have to take your textbook, look at chapters eight and nine, and then decide how you’re going to break up your reading, whether it be by page numbers or whether it be by sections. And, again, you’re going to have to consider your time on task, how long is it going to take you each day to break up each of these assignments.

When Will You Complete Your Tasks?

What I’d like to talk to you about now is when during the day you are going to get specific tasks done. So in other words, for example, that student had Chapter Eight in Anatomy and Physiology, page 124 to 129 recorded in her calendar. She knows she has to do it on Monday, but the question is when on Monday is she going to get it done. And that’s going to be driven by your class schedule, that is, when you have classes. And it’s also going to be driven by something else. Your own biology.

Every human being has what we call a biological clock, and that’s called your circadian rhythm.

We all say things like, oh, I’m naturally a night person, or, I’m a night owl, or, I’m a morning person, I do my best work in the morning. Everyone has those preferences and tendencies. And I want to talk to you about how sometimes students can tend to work against their biology.

There are actually these two nuclei in your brain. One is called the pennae and the other one is called the suprachiasmatic. So the suprachiasmatic is a fancy way of saying your biological clock. That is, the clock in your brain that keeps track of the 24-hour cycle of life.

And then there’s the pennae. And the pennae detects dark and light in the atmosphere. And these two nuclei frequently talk to each other. They communicate. So what happens is the pennae will say to the suprachiasmatic, hey, listen, there’s light up there in the atmosphere. It’s morning time. Wake this person up. And you’ll notice that sometimes you’ll even wake up before your alarm clock goes off, and you’ll roll over and you’ll say to yourself, oh, it’s 6:00 in the morning and my alarm is set for 7:00. Oh, good, I have an hour left to sleep.

Well, isn’t it funny how you wake up naturally at a particular time? And that’s because your pennae notices that there’s light in the atmosphere and says to your suprachiasmatic, hey, it’s morning time, wake this person up. That’s your circadian rhythm. And I want you to start paying attention to that, because that’s important relative to when you’re going to decide to do your school work.

How Do You Spend Your Day?

Okay. So I’d like to talk to you now about how a typical college student goes about using their time during the day. Maybe not every college student, but I’ll tell you, from my observations and working with college students over the last 20 years, this is what I’ve seen. They may roll out of bed and go to their 8:00 classes, and they have a few classes, let’s say at 8:00, 10:00 and 12:00, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and they’ve got time off in between classes. You’ll notice with your schedule some days you probably have a two- or three-hour time block in between your classes. And what I notice is that most students hang out with their friends in between classes. They seem to have a grand old time during the day. They do drag their butts, to classes, they'll go to their meals, they’ll have fun with their activities, and then they decide to start doing their school work at about 8:00 at night.  

Maybe some students don’t even start until 10:00 at night, and they’ll do their school work until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, fall asleep, and do the same thing over again the next day. Well what I tell students is if you’re doing this, you’re really working against your biology. So let’s go back to that idea of your circadian rhythm. Most people’s high energy times are in the morning because that’s when their pennae wakes up their suprachiasmatic and says, hey, wake up. Your metabolism is fastest in the morning, and it slows down progressively during the day. And as the light in the atmosphere wanes, the pennae says to the suprachiasmatic, hey, slow this person down. Thomas Edison did us all a favor when he invented the light bulb because he gave us extra daylight hours to work during the day, which is what allows us to keep going and studying into the night hours. But really, if you pay attention, you’re best to study during the daylight hours. 

Try This Experiment

And I encourage you to try this experiment. 

Take two hours during the day to do reading in your classes when it’s nice and bright and light out. Mid-day. Then take two hours from, let’s say, 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 midnight, and look at those two situations and figure out when you got your best work done. When did you get most accomplished? And I guarantee you that when you’re at your best is during those daylight hours as opposed to at night when you’re starting to feel fatigued, and that’s because your pennae is saying to the suprachiasmatic, it’s time for this person to slow down and go to sleep.

Weekly Schedule

So now that you understand the what of time management and this idea of circadian rhythm, we’re going to talk about the when even more specifically. And how we’re going to do that is really analyze and conceptualize your weekly schedules, that is how many hours you have over the course of the week to accomplish all of your tasks. So what I’d like you to do right now is click on the attachment and print out the document. If you don’t have a printer right now, that’s okay. You can go back and do this later.

Fixed Commitments

So now that you have this grid sheet in front of you, what I’d like you to do is look at it and record your fixed commitments onto the grid sheet. Right now your main fixed commitment is college, so what you want to do first is record your class schedule onto this grid sheet. Once you’ve completed that major fixed commitment that you have in your life, think about the other fixed commitments you have. Fixed commitments that are things that won’t change during the course of a week. So, for example, do you have religious ceremonies that you attend on the weekends? Do you have a particular club or organization that you participate in every Wednesday afternoon? Do you have other fixed commitments that won’t vary week to week, that is, for the 15 weeks of the semester, or for the 10 weeks of the term, they will stay solidly the same exact way. Those are your fixed commitments. So right now I’d like you take the time and record all of your fixed commitments onto this grid sheet.

Life Habits

So now that you’ve considered your fixed commitments, you might want to think about variable commitments. Let’s say you have a part time job and you work about 15 hours a week. One week your work schedule falls on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. The next week your work schedule falls on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. That would be a variable schedule. So that you wouldn’t want to include on the grid sheet, that would be something that you’d want to change every week.

But there are other variable commitments, things that you have a tendency toward. Let’s say, for example, you like to watch American Idol or The Voice on a particular night of the week. And you know that every Tuesday night, no matter what you have in terms of homework assignments, you’re going to end up in front of the television. I tell students to know that that’s a variable commitment and record that on your schedule because you know inevitably you’re going to end up in front of the television and you’re not going to be doing your homework. But you need to be reasonable about those variable commitments.

You might also decide that there are certain times each week that you’d like to go to the gym. Or there are certain times of the day that you tend to have your meals. Put those things in your calendar right now so you can kind of see what’s left over for studying and homework.

What's Left?

So now that you’ve analyzed your schedule and recorded most of your fixed commitments and some of the variable commitments, you’re done putting your meals in, your commuting time and perhaps those habitual leisure activities that you tend to do every week; I want you to take a look and see what time do you have left over? That is, now you have to decide when are you going to be doing your school work? I typically say to college students, Everyone needs a day off. Everyone needs to take at least one day a week off, otherwise, you’ll be feeling like you’re operating in burnout. For a typical college student’s schedule, Saturdays is typically a good day of the week to take off. So see if you’ve removed Saturday from your schedule and look at the rest of the days now and you can find at least, at the very least I’m guessing, 25 hours left over in the week that you can dedicate to your school work.

Now, you might be saying, gee that sounds like a lot, 25 hours a week for school work? But there’s a concept in higher education called the Carnegie Standard. And what that means is professors expect students to be studying at least three hours for every hour in class. So for example, if you carry a 15 credit hour course schedule, the expectation is for you to be doing at least 45 hours of school work outside of your class schedule. So that’s why I’m saying, on the low end see if you can find at least 25 hours of time left over in your schedule to dedicate to your school work. And on the outside, you can push it up and see if you can squeeze in 45 hours a week. Now, sometimes it’s not easy for students to do this and find that kind of time, but believe it or not, there’s a way to find a well-balanced schedule, still stick to the Carnegie Standard, and those professor expectations, and still squeeze in some leisure time for yourself.

Where Will I Find 45 Hours A Week?

Okay, so 45 hours a week. You're probably saying, "This lady is crazy. Where am I going to find 45 hours a week outside of my classes to get my schoolwork done? This is nuts."

Well, I'm going to challenge you to think about something that I call the eight - eight - eight formula. So I'm going to say it is possible to have a balanced life of work, leisure, and school. So let's think about this.

You have about eight hours that you need to sleep at night. There are 24 hours in a day, right. And I say to students don't cut out the eight hours of sleep. Your body needs time to heal and rejuvenate. You need that for a healthy lifestyle. You need that so you don't get sick-- so eight hours of sleep. 

Eight hours of time put towards school. You're in classes for about three hours a day, give or take, and you need to put about five hours a day into school work. If you multiply that by six days a week, you've got thirty hours. Then there's eight hours left for leisure time. 

So what students say to me is, "What if I have a job outside of school? What about family commitments? If I'm a student athlete, then what do I do?" Well, I tell students that school is a sacrifice, and probably if you’re going to have to steal time, it’s going to have to be from your leisure time.

But you can balance your time with the eight - eight - eight formula. I say to students, think about it. You have to sacrifice for about ten or 15 weeks, then you get a break. Then another ten or 15 weeks, and if you can stick to the eight - eight - eight formula for that fixed amount of time, for that 15 weeks, there are always little islands of vacations in between, or long weekends so that you can make up for the particular time that you’re sacrificing using the eight - eight - eight formula.

Tips To Help You Follow Through

So now that you understand the what of time management, and the when of time management, the biggest challenges students have is following through on those commitments that you’ve recorded and that you’ve decided that you’re going to do. So what I’m going to do now is to give you a wide variety of tips to help you follow through on those commitments.

Tip #1: Plan For A Suitable Place To Study

Tip number one is planning for a suitable place to study. When you’re deciding where you’re going to be doing your studying and homework, it’s key to find a distraction-free environment. Typically your residence hall room or your bedroom at home is not a good place to study. There are too many distractions in that environment. What you should do is find a distraction-free environment like a room in a classroom building on your campus or in the library. So number one, plan for a suitable place to study.

Tip #2: Find A Regular Time To Study

Number two. Find a regular time that studying works for you. It’s really key to get into a good habit, so if you could decide each day what are your best hours to study, I would get into the habit of studying at the same time every single day. Some researchers say it takes about 30 days to form a habit, and if you think in terms of a semester or a quarter being only ten or 15 weeks and you take 30 days to form a habit, that means you’ll be four weeks into the semester before you’re in the groove of studying at a particular time each day. So I suggest to students right from the outset of a new term or a new semester, study at a regular place at a regular time each day.

Tip #3: Study During YOUR Periods Of Maximum Alertness

So number three we’ve already talked about a little bit. That is, study at your periods of maximum alertness. And that goes back to the circadian rhythm. We do know for most human beings periods of maximum alertness occur during daylight hours. Although each human being’s circadian rhythm will vary a little bit, it’s good for you to figure out when your periods of maximum alertness are. Some people are better at 6:00 a.m., some people are better at 10:00 a.m. But inasmuch as you can, make sure that you pick times during the day that you feel alert and you study at the same time each day.

Tip #4: Limit Your Blocks Of Study Time

Number four is limit your blocks of study time. So I typically tell students don’t study for more than two hours on any one course at a time. Think about your attention span. Most people’s attention span will wane after about two hours, and your mind will begin to wander and you won’t get productive studying done. So when you’re thinking about creating time blocks for studying, keep them at just about two hours.

Tip #5: Set Specific Goals For Each Study Unit

So number five is set specific goals for each study unit. You got a chance earlier on to see a student recording very concrete, specific goals into her calendar. That’s what you’re going to do. Instead of writing something in your calendar like, read Economics, you’re going to be very specific and detailed. You are going to record something like, read Economics page 55 to 75, so you have a beginning point and an end point to your goal. Each goal should be specific and concrete.

Tip #6: Give Equal Time To Each Subject

Number six is give equal time to each subject that you’re taking. We have a tendency to gravitate toward subjects that we really like and spend more time on those and avoid subjects that we feel a little bit challenged by or we don’t like as much, so if you can think about giving equal time to every subject matter, chances are you’ll fare well across the board in all of your subjects.

Tip #7: Complete Assignments As Soon As Possible After The Lecture/Class

Tip number seven is to complete all of your assignments as soon as possible after your lecture or class. The reason why I give you this tip is because a memory tends to fade 24 hours away from a class lecture, 48 hours after a class lecture, so if you can do your work right away after class, your memory retention will be stronger and you’ll be more productive and more efficient in getting the assignments completed.

Tip #8: Provide For A Spaced Review

Tip number eight is perhaps one of the most important, and that is provide for a spaced review. So you’ve heard about the idea of cramming. Cramming is when we smoosh all of our studying into one discreet amount of time like studying for a test the night before. Cramming is called massed practice. Then there’s something called spaced practice, which means doing a little bit of studying each day. That’s the better way to learn and study in college is to do what we call spaced practice. So you want to spread your studying time over a period of a week. So it’s really important to plan out your time management activities so you can be sure that you’ve left yourself enough time for a spaced review of material.

Tip #9: Plan A Schedule Of Balanced Activities

So it might seem like all we've talked about is work, work, work. I’m not suggesting that. As a college student, you should be enjoying your leisure activities and getting involved on campus activities. So having said that, my next tip is to plan a schedule of balanced activities. And that goes back to the eight - eight - eight - formula. If you follow the eight - eight - eight formula, you should have enough time for your school work and enough time for your leisure activities so you have a life of social and academic activities balanced.

Tip #10: Trade Time, Don't Steal It!

Number ten is trade time, don’t steal it. You might be asking what this means. Well, when we get really efficient at time management, we’ll notice that we’ll become more and more productive, and this creates a tendency to fill up our calendars with all different kinds of activities. And what happens when we do that is something exciting could come along that we want to participate and we want to do, but we can’t because we’ve smooshed so much activity into our calendars. So what trade time means is, for example, let’s say that you’ve planned out a pretty busy week and your friend says to you, look at, I have concert tickets, would you like to go with me on Thursday night? And you look at your calendar and say, gee, I don’t know if I can, I have to do X, Y or Z. Well, if you get efficient at trading time, that means you can move the time blocks of commitments that you made to other areas of your calendar. So trading time, not stealing it, gives you a way to continue to balance those leisure activities against your work activities and the accomplishments that you've set for yourself.

Implementation 

So I hope you’ll implement all of these strategies that I have given you. It’s very easy to record all of your information into a calendar and to set up a schedule to follow each week. The hard part is implementing them. And if you follow these ten tips and work with the eight - eight - eight formula, I’m confident that you’ll be able to implement all the success strategies related to time and behavior management that I have given you today.