BUT HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DO THAT? - Steve Vogel Learning Strategist

You’re pretty much into all of your courses now. From the course outline or syllabus, you know what assignments are due, when midterms are due, and what you need to do to get the grade you are targeting.

With almost the whole term ahead of you–or rather, with only ten or eleven weeks to get everything done, now is the time to take your information about your program and set some doable goals.

When I ask students what their goal is for the term, I sometimes almost get an eye-roll, “Well, to pass . . . well, to get a good grade, Steve!”

So I ask, “What are you going to have to do for that to happen?”

And soon we are down to setting concrete, doable goals.

I ask my students to set three specific goals about what they will need to make happen in order to gain the term they are targeting. The goals need to be doable: Getting straight A’s on all thought papers for an Engineering student who doesn’t get positive retroactive constructivism may not be realistic. Getting higher grades on each succeeding thought paper leads to specific objectives that will result in an overall better thought paper average grade for the term.

Without specific goals, the objectives and strategies remain fuzzy and undefined, good intentions dwindle, and the term moves along until the end.

Here are some examples of what some students have identified as necessary for getting the grade while having a life:

I’m going to get enough sleep.

I’m going to eat healthily.

I’m going to meet deadlines.

I’m going to stay up to date on my reading.

I’m going to have a balanced life this term.

I’m not going to skip class.

I’m going to make better use of my study time.

. . .

On the other hand, too many goals also isn’t realistic. Start by picking no more than three.

Let’s say one of your objectives is to connect with the instructor more than you have in the past. I would ask you, “What does that mean?” We would explore what you can do, and you might decide to research them online. You would note their office hours. Many online instructors stay online after class for those who still have questions. You would learn effective agendas and questions for any office meeting with that instructor.

For each of the sample objectives above there are two questions, “What does that mean?” “What can be done to make it happen?”

And more often than not, no matter what the goal is, no matter what the operational objectives are, the steps to be taken need to be written down and scheduled if they are going to happen. I am recommending more and more, and the research upholds this: Schedules need to be written down and tracked on paper. Once something is on the phone or laptop, and the device is turned off, it isn’t as “real” as if it is in a paper agenda. There is also the advantage of the week at a glance, where you can flip ahead to the remaining weeks and have a visual time map that you just don’t get with the daily electronic list.

But all that takes time, I hear. Yes, it does. Your goals are worth that time investment. You are worth that time.

It’s a little like managing your money. Somehow, you have more money if you take the time to schedule your spending, and somehow, you have more time if you take time to schedule your time. One executive charging over $500 per hour spends an hour each day on time management and says they are able to bill many more hours because of that hour. You will have more study time and be more efficient in achieving all of your strategic objectives if you take 10 to 20 minutes each day and a half hour each weekend investing in reviewing your time, scheduling, planning and adjusting as needed. It may seem strange at first, when you think you should be reviewing Bayes’ theorem instead of updating your agenda notebook, or when a friend has asked for help with their paper, but when you see the results of maintaining this time boundary for yourself, you will find yourself uncomfortable if it gets missed. Bayes’ theorem and helping your friend can be scheduled, after all.

So that’s how it happens. You set the goal. Then you look at what that means in terms of what exactly you will have to do. Then you schedule it. You’ll be far better equipped to handle the unexpected glitches that arise throughout the term.

The resource for dealing with some of those glitches is to call on resources that are available—I’m one of those resources—and that will be next week’s topic!

Connect with me to plan the tools for meeting your academic goals this term [email protected] and

The information in this blog cannot take the place of support from your own mental health professional or community health resources. Reach out to them. And IF YOU ARE IN CRISIS, PLEASE DIAL 911.