An important part of being a successful student is being able to manage your time effectively.  Poor time management can often lead to stress, whereas good time management can help you achieve your goals, allocate time for yourself and feel in control of your life.

In order to make your goals achieveble, it can be helpful to plan or map out your semester, week, and/or day.

Semester

The purpose of mapping out a semester is to help you gain an overview of the demands on your time.

Download a copy of a blank semester planner (PDF, 8 KB)

• Consult Course Profiles for key dates
  • Lectures
  • Tutorials
  • Assignment due dates
  • Other important dates / timelines
    
    
• Include social events and other commitments
• Update and modify as you go to help you prioritise
• Set it up as a wall planner so that you can easily refer to it
• Make it interesting to look at by using different colours to decorate and brighten up your planner

Week

The purpose of a weekly planner is to help you prioritise your tasks, and it should assist in finding a balance of activities that suits you.  If there isn't enough time to complete everything that you want to achieve in one week, you may have to think about what you can remove or reduce.

Download a copy of a blank weekly planner (PDF, 7 KB)

• Include all fixed commitments
• Record travel & meal times
• Decide on times for general study & assignment work
• Check you are not over committed
• Treat uni like a job with regular hours
• Spend 10 hrs/week for each 2 unit course

Day

In order to be time efficient, it is important to have a workable plan of action each day.  This can be as simple as a ‘Things To Do' list.  It can be a good idea to spend some time each morning mapping out what you want to achieve for that day.

• Be specific
• Dot point your tasks
• Tick them off as you achieve each task
• Match ‘size of task' to ‘chunks of time'
• Build variety and fun into schedule to maintain interest and motivation
• Have more than one task on the go at any time (this is helpful if there are unforeseen circumstances that prevent you from working on one task)
• Prioritise