time strategies

 

Using Checklists

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It is really important to have time management strategies. I am a super senior, and I really only started using time management strategies a couple of years ago. I am still not great with time management, but I know a lot of the tricks and have been consistently getting my work done on time. Making lists of the things that need to get done can be extremely helpful. I had a lot on my plate last year, so I would make lists of what I had to do and when things needed to be done by. It turned the mountain back into a mole hill, which made me feel a lot less overwhelmed. It was also a great feeling as I accomplished things and got to remove them from the list, I could actually see the progress that I was making. I read the psychology of checklists and 4 questions to help you overcome procrastination. These two articles had a lot of useful information, but I was already aware of most of it. My favorite thing that the psychology of checklists talked about was goal setting. The ideas of goal setting is something that I have done a decent amount of research on, as a part of my endeavors of learning about motivation. The gist of it is that when there is a task that we want to accomplish, then it is very useful to make small goals, a step by step list of things we need to get done in order to achieve our goals. A good example would be wanting to ace this class. That task is a little vague and daunting, so it is useful to break it up into steps and think about what you need to do to reach that goal. In order to get an A, one needs get good grades on all of the assignments. In order to do well on the assignments, one needs to make sure they actually do the assignments. To ensure that one does the assignments, it would be of great use to make a schedule of when to work on these assignments. Once the when has been decided, then it is simply a matter of delegating the time to doing the assignments. Now that we have a schedule of when to do what work, the only thing left to do is stick to that schedule. Remember that it is not the end of the world if you stray from your schedule a bit, but make sure that you get back on schedule or readjust it. The other article I read was about 4 ways to overcome procrastination. One of my biggest issues is simply getting started, so it suggested a good idea of doing one small thing to start and I think that would be super helpful to get over the hump of starting, getting some momentum going. Another good idea that it suggested was use a little bit of fear and anxiety as a way to get motivated to do something. I love this idea, and have been hindered because the opposite thing happens with me. I am pretty much a stress free person who has little to no anxiety. This has made it so it'll be the night before an exam, and I have so little stress that I simply cannot study, because I have no sense of urgency, so I generally just end up winging it. I wish that I had some anxiety that I could utilize as motivation.