Welcome everybody to the second of these lectures on successful study at college. Today we're going to cover an issue that will be vitally important to you throughout your time here, and that is time management. Hundreds of books have been written about it, and those of you who are interested in doing some extra reading are very welcome to see me after the lecture, as I have a book list here and some other useful materials.
In the past, time management used to mean making a list to plan for every hour of the week and then trying to stick to this plan. These days, however, the whole idea has changed. It's impossible to manage time; it just goes. So what you really need to manage is yourself. In other words, you need to set goals and move towards achieving these goals in an efficient and systematic way.
Most coursework at the college is set by mid-semester, and at the end of the semester it usually involves two written assignments, or essays, of between 1,500 and 3,000 words. During the first weeks of term everyone looks cheerful and focused, then around week six, assignment time, people start to look stressed. The library reports that an increasing number of students have trouble at the library when books are not available. The reason is that people have not managed their resources well.
There's a lot of spare time in a day. If you spend just one hour on an activity that helps your study, that one hour could have a major impact, particularly if you make it a regular habit. Have a look at the planners in your information kits. There are three: one term planner, one weekly planner and one daily planner. The term planner helps you get an overview of everything for the term, the weekly planner helps you week by week, and the daily planner helps you with the really detailed planning.
A week is really the shortest time you have to establish an overview of your time for planning purposes. If you can get into the habit of planning like this, you'll soon find that you've actually had more time than before to spend on relaxation and other activities that you enjoy.
