It is amazing how much more you can get done when you plan ahead. Whether it be in regards to work, your personal life or studying – a game plan ensures productivity will sky rocket!
When you are trying to fit study into an already busy week, it is important to have clear and realistic goals in mind. By factoring in your other commitments, you will understand exactly how much time you have to achieve your study goals.
Here are our top tips on how to make the most of your precious study hours.
Plan ahead
Sit down and plan for the upcoming week. You might draw a timetable, jot your plans down in a notebook or even send yourself an email reminder! Just make sure you capture the blocks of time each day you want to set aside for study.
A good way to start is to mark out the time you know you can’t study, such as when you’re at work, taking kids to appointments, out to dinner with friend, or at sports training. Then you will know how much time you have left to complete your uni work.
Have clear goals
Now that you have made the time to study, you don’t want to open the computer without an idea of what to do! The last thing you want is to spend the first 20 minutes working out what assessments you have coming up, or which of the weekly activities you haven’t done yet.
To combat this, create a to-do list of all the things you need to achieve that week and write an approximate estimate of how long they will take. You could even order them in terms of the priority, from things that absolutely must be done by a certain deadline, through to things that are less urgent.
Use your time wisely
If you only have a quick half hour timeslot carved out for studying, it is best not to tackle an extremely complicated task. Perhaps knocking over one of your weekly readings would be more suitable?
Similarly, if you have an essay due and have managed to find a solid three hour block of time, this could be a good opportunity to get the bulk of the work done. Go back to your to-do list of tasks and pick one that is achievable in the time that you have.
Reward your achievements
No matter how good your intentions are, it is very hard to concentrate for eight hours on the one assignment! So make sure you break up your day with little rewards for good behaviour.
If you do one hour of solid work (this means no logging into Facebook!) give yourself a 15 minute break to stretch, get a snack, or do something fun. When you are relaxed and happy, you will always be more productive.
