Using time resource to do well in study

 

 

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Using time resource to do well in study

 

Time is precious. Unlike money, we can’t earn it back when it’s gone. That’s why time management is a crucial skill and we should take it seriously to get ourselves disciplined with time. We can do so by being aware of our daily activities and categorize them into four groups:

 

A.        important and urgent

B.        important but not urgent

C.        not important but urgent

D.        not important and not urgent

 

Write down your activities on your daily activity plan and label them according to the categories above. Make it a habit. You should choose to pay attention to activities with high priority first. The priority ranks highest from A to D. D is unproductive and you should try to eliminate such activity from your life to free up more time. Here’s an example of a day plan:

 

Chatting on MSN                                            D

Waiting for friend’s call                                    C

Preparing for next week exam              A

Improving writing skills                        B

 

This plan helps us to become aware of the priority of our activities. Now which activities would you “invest” your precious time in? Chatting is fun but highly unproductive and eats away your time resource. Try to eliminate such habit or weaken its momentum. Eliminating C and D will free up more time to do A and B. You can also use calendar software to plan your activity. Instead of using alphabets, you can also use color codes/flags to set priority for activities.

 

Being aware of the activities is not enough. It’s helpful if we can “feel” the time length of our activities. Get a timer or egg alarm and set an estimated time for doing things. Finish your task before it buzzes. Try to think of ways to shorten the time to do things, by working faster or with more efficient method. The timer keeps us disciplined and aware of time lapse, otherwise we won’t know how fast time flies, as if day turns to night in a blink of eye. You can also download timer software if you want to.

 

Procrastination happens when we delay doing important work right NOW. It’s bad because we have the time resource but we are not using it – what a waste. It’s like throwing gold coins down the drain. Normally, procrastination is caused by distraction and emotional blockage.

 

To reduce the chances of procrastinating, we first identify things that distract us. TV and internet is tempting. If possible, keep these two things out of sight. If for some reason you can’t escape these distractions, relocate to more conducive study places, such as study room, café, or library. Learn to say NO to sudden invitation that will distract you. Only join invitation that gives early notice so that you can plan your time in advance.

 

Emotional blockage such as fear, anger, or simply laziness might cause you to procrastinate in your work instead of facing it head on. You should solve this problem once and for all. Go to your study desk. Take out all the study materials you need. Sit down. Start to study in small chunk like 5 to 10 minutes so that you can gain momentum. Once the momentum is there to push you, you defeats procrastination and you just need to let the momentum grow by doing your work constantly.

 

It’s easier said than done. What if the above method fails, especially when the stress is so great like tearing you apart? Just sit at your desk and do a few rounds of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping. Last time when I had severe stress, I did EFT like 60 rounds to kill it off and continued to study at ease. You might need to spend a few minutes repeating EFT for severe stress but the few minutes is peanuts compare to the reward – getting rid of severe procrastination.

 

Another way to end procrastination and gain momentum in your study is through simulation. The act of study might trigger your fear, but simulating the act of study is a “milder” alternative to trick your fear. Sit down, relax, and imagine vividly that you are studying. Imagine the details of your study material, the way you enjoy it whole day, everyday. This helps to give you a mental momentum while by-passing the fear that prevent you from studying. After the simulation, get back to the desk and continue to study. The momentum will continue to build up slowly to kill the emotional blockage.

 

Some people who can’t study alone might study with friends. Sometimes it backfires when the study session ends up as chit chat party. Invest your time only in study group that brings positive result. If it does not help much, better stop it.

 

The methods above are about managing daily time. We should also manage our long term time resource. It’s a good idea to draw a time line for one semester, from the first day till semester break. Divide the line into months or even weeks. Mark the dates for exam and tests on the line and stick this time line on somewhere highly visible, where you can see it often. This gives you a “feel” of the days and weeks available to prepare for exam. Semester time line is better than monthly calendar because it’s simple and you can see the overall progress clearly.

 

Now you can spice up this timeline or your monthly calendar by adding color zones, with highlighter or color pen. Set red zone in exam week and a week before it. This is the red alert time frame where you are supposed to be well prepared already and do final preparation. You can add a yellow alert zone for one or two months before exam to mark the time for you to study seriously for exam. You can add other color zones like green or blue if you want, as long as you know what to do and mark it on the timeline. It helps to set deadlines and get you to start working according to your study strategy. Being aware of the time frame and having clear plans for timing helps you organize your work and save time.

 

That’s all about time management, which is important to give us enough time to carry out study plans. Now let’s see how we use the available time in our hands for our study system.

 

First, let see how time is used wisely. Don’t get the misconception that efficient way of using time is to cut off as much time as possible. That’s not true. It’s about “time to result” leveraging. Smart students use time in doing something that yields great result; inefficient students consistently use time in something that produces little or no result. It’s like good investors invest their money on good quality investment that produces consistent yearly return. You should be a good time investor by making sure that your activity is productive enough to worth your precious time investment.

 

For example, we can invest some time in knowledge management system by creating databases for scientific formulas and other vital information. We spend a bit of time in this activity, but it yields great result down the road. All important information is right in front of our eyes in simplified form. It’s easy to learn and memorize it. If we skip this step and study directly from text book, we might save the time in making database, but the vital information will be scattered all around the text book. And we know text book can be chunks of texts that are hard to swallow. Studying few hours from text book is tiresome and we learn only a few important stuffs. That’s why it’s important to invest your time carefully.

 

I have a tip for you to use your waiting time productively. We spend a lot of time in non productive activities like idling while commuting in bus or train, and waiting for someone or something to come. To make use of this unused time, we can invest some time in “smart study card”, where we write down important study information on small paper cards, such as formulas, vocabulary, or bullet point notes. These cards can be folded into your wallet and taken with you wherever you go. Instead of doing nothing in the bus, you can study from these small highly portable cards. Don’t look down on such petty waiting time. I can read a book in a week solely with the time while commuting on train!

 

We now need to create a system to allocate our time resource. How much time to spend on homework, tuition, and classes? It’s surprising that students are willing to spend many hours on unproductive homework yet refuse to spend 20 minutes a day to upgrade their mental capacity, which will boost their study performance and benefit them for a lifetime. You should allocate at least 20 minutes a day on upgrading your mental capability, such as learning new words and memory techniques.

 

Spend some time on classes that are productive. Go to good tuition teachers who provide excellent teaching and reading material. Skip classes that worsen you study, if possible. In terms of home work, do it smartly. When comes to studying, make sure it’s worth your time. All these examples above require time and knowledge resource to work in concert harmoniously. We will discuss about knowledge resource in the next post. Stay tune guys!

 

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