Time management and scheduling

Time management and its planning are essential for the progress of your studies. The goal-oriented progress of studies at the UAS level requires 40 hours of studying per week. How do you accommodate these 40 weekly hours in your own weekly calendar so that you remain fit for pursuing your studies? The everyday life of many students is also paced by salaried work, hobbies, friends and other social activities. Furthermore, for many students, the time available is limited by the everyday chores of a family with children.

In UAS studies, the studies are paced by compulsory classroom or online meetings. These meetings and their frequency may vary considerably between different weeks and months. This is even more the case with part-time studies. For this reason, advance information about upcoming schedules, the returning of assignments, skills demonstrations, exams, compulsory attendance, etc. is necessary and recording these events in the calendar is very important. This will allow enough time to be left for the other areas of life as well.

Even though the studies involve a lot of independent study, you will not be studying alone, because many study modules include group work. For collaborative work, the timetables of other students and/or those of the commissioners of different assignments (working life orientation) also determine the way of working, the time available and the progress of assignments.

Taking these aspects into account, time management is an essential skill not only in studies, but also in working life after graduation. This fact is also strongly related to self-direction and self-management skills. You will develop these skills during your studies when you look at your own time management and your own way of learning and working and learn new ways to work and learn alone and together with others. In many situations, different digital applications free up your time and make your work easier to manage (sharing information, commenting, co-creation, documentation).

Things that affect time management (Wiskari 2014 and the Nyyti website):

• Own habits
• Studying and working environment
• Changes in life situation
• Ability to say “No”
• Ability to concentrate on the moment
• Importance of relaxation
• Clarity of the objectives

Time management is a skill that can be learned!

• Time management and its planning are essential skills for everyone who wants to work in a productive manner.
• Time management helps you to consciously direct your own actions towards the goals that you really want to achieve.
• Goal setting is an essential part of time management; the clearer the goals, the easier it is to direct your energy towards the right things.
• Goal setting makes it easier to distinguish and select between important and less important things and actions (prioritisation skill).
• Time management also helps you in taking responsibility for your life and directing yourself, improving your self-knowledge and self-esteem.
• Prioritisation skills: which things to focus on and why? How do I work best, what are my development challenges, what do I say “Yes” and “No” to?
• When you feel capable of influencing matters that concern you, this will give you a sense of stability and control.

Getting things done and wellbeing

• What is the order of my priorities? What is of value? What is unnecessary? What can I give up? What do I say ‘No’ to? What belongs to a good life?
• Internal or external motivation?
• Does multitasking work? Am I able to concentrate on one thing at a time?
• What gives me energy, what consumes it?
• How do I take care of my personal wellbeing, how do I recover? Do I remember to stop and calm down?

More time for what is important → Getting things done
More time for what is important → Wellbeing

Checklist for a good study week (adapted from Tuominen & Pohjakallio 2012):

• Change your conception of time: look at your achievements, instead of the time that you spent. Break down your day into separate parts.
• Recognise the essential, prioritize.
• Observe with enthusiasm – monitor your time management, emotions and energy levels.
• Plan carefully – plan your working week in advance and at the end of each day.
• Clear your mind – manage your undone work: from your mind into a list, from the list into your calendar.
• Allow for idle moments, but be prepared to also flexibly fill them in.
• Build your week with a few standard pieces.
• Build different kinds of places for studying or working for yourself.
• Take a break every now and then… consciously calming down is important… remember to breathe.

Grab a hold of things!

A summarising and illustrative reflection task for you:

1. Prepare a daily and weekly timetable for yourself. Draw up a 24-hour and full-week timetable in a way you prefer.
2. Consider your typical study day and week and place time-consuming everyday things in your timetable. Place all aspects of life in the timetables.
3. When you have filled in the timetables, what does your daily and weekly timetable look like? a) Is there a good balance between different aspects of life? b) Is there enough time for studying? c) Do you sleep enough every day? c) Are you exercising enough? d) Do you relax and do you have enough social contacts in your life?
4. Consider, what kind of corrections you should make with regard to your time management, or which aspects you should monitor more closely or consciously now and in the future? What should I reduce, what should I add, what should I say “No” to, where do I get the resources to do all this?