Tools for Organizing Your Time
Tools for Organizing Your Time
Transcript
Let's discuss a couple of additional tools for organizing your time. The first one is awesome. Awesome because it's really useful, and awesome because a student in one of my classes came up with it on his own. It's a tool called a homework syllabus, and this is what it looks like. What the student did is he took the four syllabi from his four different academic courses. He distilled out all of the assignments, and readings, and action items from each of those syllabi, and he condensed them onto a single document. A document that he called a homework syllabus. Essentially what the homework syllabus is, is it's a condensed version of all of your homework. That is, all of the assignments you need to do, all of the exams you need to prepare for, and all of the papers you need to write. This allows the student to go to one easy central document and determine quickly what it is that they need to accomplish week by week. Not only does this function as a very useful to-do list, but it can also at a single glance give you a sense of how much work you have week by week. That is to say it gives you a better sense of your semester workflow so that you can understand how much time you're going to need to devote to school at various points in the semester.
The other thing I like about it is that the student created some space at the bottom for useful notes for other information that it would be helpful to know. Here you can see that the student added additional information about when classes were and were not going to be in session.
Again, this document is simple, but it's incredibly helpful, and it allows the student to get a much better sense of what their work commitments are going to be for school, over the entire semester in an easy document. I'd now like to talk a little bit about checklists, because checklists are one of the primary technologies we use in order to stay organized about the tasks that we need to complete.
There are a variety of ways to keep checklists, but I'd like to talk a little bit about what your checklists should look like in order to be as effective as possible. The first thing to keep in mind is that it's important to make sure that your checklist has items prioritized in the order that they need to be done. That is, the most important items at the top and less important items at the bottom. That means that if you don't get all the way through your checklist, it's not the end of the world. But second, I want to say a word about the kinds of items you put on your checklist. When I was working on my dissertation, I would put the word dissertation at the top of my checklist with a box next to it every single day. The reason it was at the top was because it was the most important thing I was working on at that time. But no matter how hard I worked, I didn't complete my dissertation in that single day, and so I could never put a check in the checkbox. I eventually started talking to a friend, because I wasn't making very good progress, and my friend suggested that instead of putting the word dissertation next to the box, I should put 250 words of dissertation next to the box. Lo and behold, I started writing at least 250 words a day, and I was able to put a check in that box at the top of my list because I was accomplishing that amount of work.
And there's nothing we like more, or find more edifying, than putting a check in a box. So, not only should your items on your checklist be properly prioritized, but make sure that at least some of them are accomplishable. Make sure they're things that you can actually do, and attain, and achieve, because putting checks in some of those boxes is going to keep you motivated for making fuller progress. And finally, I want to talk a little bit about some of the apps that my students have used on their phones that have been really helpful to them in organizing their time.
The first is an app called RescueTime. RescueTime allows you literally to rescue time back from activities that you're doing that are draining your time or sinking your time. By looking closely how you're spending your time during the day, it will help you identify pretty easily where you're draining some of your time. Toggl is a really great app for helping you to capture how much time you actually spend on different projects and tasks during your day. This is especially useful if you're managing more than one project at a time. Focus Booster is an app that uses the Pomodoro method of 25 minute intervals of focused study, with two to three minutes of breaks, to help use your phone as a timer for that Pomodoro technique.
Usually, you have to use a kitchen timer, but Focus Booster allows you to use your phone as an effective timer for turning unstructured time into focused, structured study time. Remember the Milk is a really great app for task managing, trying to keep track of lots and lots of things that you have to do in a short period of time, and finally, I want to talk about that reminder function. Google Calendars, or other calendaring software that you may be using. Yes, Google Calendar is a very powerful tool, and yes calendars in general are very useful, but the ability to use your digital tool to set reminders for yourself of tasks that you need to do not just the day before, but the week or even the month before, can really help recall to your attention the things that you need to do not just in the near term, but in the long term too. But do remember, all of these apps live on your phone.
And while your phone is a very powerful tool for organizing your time, it's also a very powerful distraction from your time. So make sure that you're not spending so much time managing your time on your phone that you're not spending your time effectively and efficiently.
The other thing I like about it is that the student created some space at the bottom for useful notes for other information that it would be helpful to know. Here you can see that the student added additional information about when classes were and were not going to be in session.
Again, this document is simple, but it's incredibly helpful, and it allows the student to get a much better sense of what their work commitments are going to be for school, over the entire semester in an easy document. I'd now like to talk a little bit about checklists, because checklists are one of the primary technologies we use in order to stay organized about the tasks that we need to complete.
There are a variety of ways to keep checklists, but I'd like to talk a little bit about what your checklists should look like in order to be as effective as possible. The first thing to keep in mind is that it's important to make sure that your checklist has items prioritized in the order that they need to be done. That is, the most important items at the top and less important items at the bottom. That means that if you don't get all the way through your checklist, it's not the end of the world. But second, I want to say a word about the kinds of items you put on your checklist. When I was working on my dissertation, I would put the word dissertation at the top of my checklist with a box next to it every single day. The reason it was at the top was because it was the most important thing I was working on at that time. But no matter how hard I worked, I didn't complete my dissertation in that single day, and so I could never put a check in the checkbox. I eventually started talking to a friend, because I wasn't making very good progress, and my friend suggested that instead of putting the word dissertation next to the box, I should put 250 words of dissertation next to the box. Lo and behold, I started writing at least 250 words a day, and I was able to put a check in that box at the top of my list because I was accomplishing that amount of work.
And there's nothing we like more, or find more edifying, than putting a check in a box. So, not only should your items on your checklist be properly prioritized, but make sure that at least some of them are accomplishable. Make sure they're things that you can actually do, and attain, and achieve, because putting checks in some of those boxes is going to keep you motivated for making fuller progress. And finally, I want to talk a little bit about some of the apps that my students have used on their phones that have been really helpful to them in organizing their time.
The first is an app called RescueTime. RescueTime allows you literally to rescue time back from activities that you're doing that are draining your time or sinking your time. By looking closely how you're spending your time during the day, it will help you identify pretty easily where you're draining some of your time. Toggl is a really great app for helping you to capture how much time you actually spend on different projects and tasks during your day. This is especially useful if you're managing more than one project at a time. Focus Booster is an app that uses the Pomodoro method of 25 minute intervals of focused study, with two to three minutes of breaks, to help use your phone as a timer for that Pomodoro technique.
Usually, you have to use a kitchen timer, but Focus Booster allows you to use your phone as an effective timer for turning unstructured time into focused, structured study time. Remember the Milk is a really great app for task managing, trying to keep track of lots and lots of things that you have to do in a short period of time, and finally, I want to talk about that reminder function. Google Calendars, or other calendaring software that you may be using. Yes, Google Calendar is a very powerful tool, and yes calendars in general are very useful, but the ability to use your digital tool to set reminders for yourself of tasks that you need to do not just the day before, but the week or even the month before, can really help recall to your attention the things that you need to do not just in the near term, but in the long term too. But do remember, all of these apps live on your phone.
And while your phone is a very powerful tool for organizing your time, it's also a very powerful distraction from your time. So make sure that you're not spending so much time managing your time on your phone that you're not spending your time effectively and efficiently.