TRIPWIRES THAT SABOTAGE THE BEST-LAID PLANS

Last week I left you to guess the single most critical factor that my successful students attended to in gaining academic success. If you have been following my blogs, you will know that it is time management. All of the other techniques of good studentship don’t happen unless there is time for them to happen, so we address time management in addition to the other academic skills that need attention.

This week I’m not going into the reasons for time planning, nor the tools and techniques. I’m just listing the tripwires that can sabotage the best-laid plans:

Perfectionism: Perfectionism is the enemy of staying on a scheduling plan. Scheduling every minute and beating yourself up when the schedule isn’t followed to the letter means that the plan will be abandoned. Expect to fall off. When you do, have a look, endorse for pausing for reflection, adapt the plan, and get back on.

Every setback is an opportunity for a comeback.

Added complexity. What worked when life was simpler can fall apart–parents aren’t doing the meals and laundry, teachers aren’t telling us what to do when and reminding us regularly. Or we have to homeschool because of COVID, or the boss wants us to take on more work. Life overflows.

Taking more time for time planning seems paradoxical when it seems we have even less time than we had with our old systems. We find we’re losing control over attending to what’s most important–especially if we’ve never had this problem before.

The old tools (sticky notes, telling ourselves “I’ll remember that”) just don’t wedge in everything that we want to get done. We need to learn, practice and adapt new tools.

Not planning for time planning. If it isn’t scheduled, it’s easy to put off. Setting aside daily review of the day and overview of the next day–it takes 20 minutes. Once a week, take an hour to review the week and sketch out the next week. Extra planning at the beginning of the term, at the beginning of group work, at the beginning of each complex assignment–here your move into project planning, but it takes time, and the time for that planning and management needs to be scheduled.

Not planning for the obvious: It’s surprising how much the obvious and the trivial can take out of our day: brushing our teeth, grooming, commuting, eating, sleeping. Has to be done, and takes time not available for other priorities, so needs to be taken into account. 

Short-term expediency: We run short on time, so we cut down on sleep, exercise and meditation. Focus and productivity take a hit. So we are even shorter on time. There’s a difference between exercising less and exercising not at all–time planning keeps us in control and in shape for the long haul of tight deadlines and exam week.

Planning ahead means that we are less likely to run into  a situation where we feel we need to pull an all-nighter, and if we do, we’ll be in better shape to do so if we have built up our fitness reserves.

Forgetting about the What-Ifs: Life happens. Plans can fall apart if time for contingencies hasn’t been built in–what if the group leader gets sick? What if you get sick? What if the reference resources aren’t available? 

We cannot1 think of every contingency, but we can build in just-in-case time cushions.

Inaccurate time estimates: This one happens particularly at the beginning of a new course–we usually underestimate the amount of time that each step of an assignment is going to take. Without self-monitoring, we fail to adjust, and time requirements can snowball.

Self-monitoring is an executive function skill that grows with attention and prectice, and is a key time-management tool.

Trying to overachieve everything: Here is another area where perfectionism is a real time chewer, especially if we are accustomed to being high achievers. Not every paper has to be a doctoral dissertation. Not every class presentation has to have every PowerPoint add-in with 3D interactive animation. 

Part of time management is adjusting the time scheduled to meet the standards of the course, first of all. Then, if there is time, exceeding the standards–but not at the expense of meeting other course and life requirements (including fun).

Not planning for fun: Whether fun is music, hiking, binge-watching, hanging out, or gaming or all of the above, if you don’t do it, your well-being and productivity will take a hit. More likely, you’ll do it anyway, but you won’t be in control of when and how long. (I have some tips for controlling gaming, for example, and the first step is scheduling it.)

Those are some of the biggest challenges my students face. There are many other academic skills we address–reading texts, taking notes, review techniques, writing exams, presentations, group work, procrastination, . . . but time management underlies them all.

Do you have any tips that help you keep control of your time? Connect with me to share your own challenges and successes, or to book for the coming terms if you’re ready to kick it up a notch:  [email protected]  

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.