Planners

Plan your time = Plan your success

One of the natural flaws in human time management is that we like to spend a lot of time doing what we enjoy and very little time doing what we don't enjoy. For example, you might have to study for accounting and geography. Let us say that you love accounting, and hate geography. It is likely that in a 2 hour study session you will spend 2 hours studying accounting and you probably won't get to geography at all simply because you don't like it. A way around this is to schedule your time and stick to your schedule. Gianni Versace says that he only ever has 8 projects on the go at once, and he only spends 1 hour on each one per day. When his hour is up, no matter how much he has or hasn't achieved, he will stop and move onto the next one. This means that all his projects get a fair go and none of them get neglected. Remember, you won't get good results by doing really well in one subject you have to do well in most of them.

Developing a weekly plan can really help you to schedule you time and give you a chance at doing well in all of your subjects.

• The keys to a great weekly plan are:
  • Schedule in the really important things (such as study) first and then make time for leisure activities, part time work, etc. next.
  • Specify when you are going to study each subject and for how long.
  • Be realistic. Don't schedule in 10 hours of maths study on a Friday night. Schedule in what you ideally would like to achieve, but also what you think you CAN achieve. If you set yourself too much work you won't achieve it at all and you will be discouraged.
  • Make sure you leave plenty of time for friends and family.
  • Remind yourself that if you don't stick to your plan today, that you don't throw it out, you just start fresh tomorrow.
  • Review your schedule every week. If it is too hard or too easy to achieve, adjust it to suit your needs.

Activity 1

Click the link for the weekly planner for Malcolm Turnbull below. Consider the following questions:

Study Timetable Example

Q) What do you think about Malcolm's time management?

Q) Can you see any recurring patterns in Malcolm's plan? Why do you think this is so?

Q) Do you think Malcolm has good balance to his week i.e. is he getting enough work done, but also having enough fun?

Q) If Malcolm was your friend, would you give him any advice about how he spends his week?

Activity 2

Open the template below. Have a go at developing your own weekly planner. Once created, you can print this plan out and put it up on the wall or in your diary.

Study Timetable Template