Time Management – Evaluating your Plan
- Be self-aware and be patient-it takes some time to get the hang of all this.
- This week, keep a running tab on how your time ACTUALLY was spent. The Time Awareness Exercise can help.
- It probably will take awhile to accurately judge how much time to set aside for any given task. You may find that times you thought would be good study times didn’t work out so well.
- Remember that this is a work in progress throughout your life. But it’s your work and your time. You have the keys to the car, so don’t be afraid to drive it!
- Take stock of your progress:
- Does my template for the week accurately reflect how I’m spending my time? How does reality match up with my plan?
- Am I making the most of my study time? Was this a good estimate of the time I would need, or do I need to allow more/less time for particular types of tasks?
- Be flexible with the unavoidable and unexpected—time once wasted is gone, so don’t fret! Take charge: forgive and rededicate.
- Remember that your working calendar is always a work in progress. If you’re planning ahead week by week, you should be able to find time to re-position that study time. It may mean bumping something to a less-prime position so that a more pressing task can get taken care of. One big advantage of this process is that (thanks to the template) you will see opportunities for rescheduling tasks that got missed, due to unexpected events.