Tyler's Blog Death of Destiny

On the Process of Time Management

Some of you may have heard of Cal Newport; he's currently a post-doc student at MIT and author of How to Become a Straight-A Student and How to Win at College. This term, I'm working with 2 other UBC students to run a workshop/experiment on study habits and time management as a sub-project of Cal's called Study Hacks on Campus (SHOC). In this post, I will briefly go over some of the ideas we have been attempting and discussing.

Time Logging is a method used to keep track of where your time actually goes. It can be very useful to do this for a few days every few weeks as it will show you how productive you are actually being with your time. That being said, it does take motivation to remember to consistently fill it out. The set up of a time log is simple. It (usually) has two columns: time, and activity. The time refers to the starting time of the activity (eg. 7:28 AM), and the activity refers to the name of the activity (eg. Eating breakfast). Some people also like to put in a third column to indicate whether or not the activity was scheduled or unscheduled, or if the activity was a distraction. At the end of the time-logging period, review how much time you actually spent doing which activities (eg. Studying versus Television) and see which activities are consuming too much of your time (and which areas need more time from you).

To-Do Lists are powerful tools for keeping track of what needs to be done by certain deadlines. They are good for seeing the quantities of things that need to be done, and for clearing your head of storing all of these activities. The important thing about to-do lists is to write things down immediately when you realize they are tasks you need to do. There are many things you can use as a to-do list, ranging from something as simple as a paper notebook, or something more techy like Google Tasks. Personally, I use Remember the Milk, but it's just personal preference.

Calendars, or Agendas, are also powerful tools for keeping track of what activities are going to be done when. I won't say too much about them as most people I know use them (though, not always to sufficient amounts). They make it easy to see how to fit irregular tasks amongst recurring (or previously scheduled) tasks. Like to-do lists, there are many options for using a calendar/agenda. Google Calendar is my favourite flavour.

Time Blocking is a method combining the calendar with the to-do list. Although very simple, it's a very useful tool for getting things done. All it involves is transferring tasks from your to-do list into specific (free) time slots on your calendar. The important things are to make sure you schedule enough time to actually complete the activity, and also to make sure the activity is something specific enough that it can actually be effectively completed. This technique is key to effectively clearing things off of your to-do list.

So yep, that's a very brief overview of what we're working on right now. I might expand on some of the topics later. Let me know if you use any of them, if you prefer other techniques, or if you want more information on them :)