Time management I

Time management systems, workshops and advice earns millions of dollars for consultants. Time management applies to all activity associated with your endeavours to find Success At School. There are possibly hundreds of books printed every year on ways to manage your time. That means that it is an important topic for all of us to consider. There is an expert on every corner. We all need guidance as we go through life, especially when we have a myriad of tasks to be worked on simultaneously with due dates stacked one on top of the other as they are in school. The day to day requirements of school forms some of the most complex demands we will ever face. School life is very busy. We really do need help to cope.

How do you begin to model all that needs to be done so it is done in time, on time and represents your best quality of production? Math, English, History, Art, part time work, family commitments, sport, occasional entertainment and breaks, friends, sleep ... arrrrgggh. How will it all fit? Does fitting it all in just seem like a dream, something that has always been in the 'too hard box'? What if you heard that only a few hours of planning and preparation is all you needed to put everything into place so you knew from the outset that it all pieced neatly together? Well, it's true.

The first thing you must do is begin to record all you do outside school; include anything that uses up time, including recovery time for things like sport and late night entertainment. Try to find the key things that are repeated regularly and those that come up frequently. These can be catalogued a long time before they occur and will form a skeleton for your time management exercise. Leave out nothing. If you insist on watching television, put it down, especially if there are set times.

As you record the outside of school time eaters, start to outline the demands that school places on your time. Gradually a detailed picture of your life's time demands will emerge. Now you have some really valuable information that will help you with study, work and play. Think about its significance. It will actually help you find more time in your life because time management is not about filling your time up, it is about freeing up time. The time is freed up as you get used to prioritising what devours and wastes time. Can you give up some TV time? Do you have other flexitime which can be moved to another time slot or even used for something more pressing? Do not forget our aim. Success At School that leads to success in life; to give ourselves more opportunity to get a firm foundation for a better future. That's what we want.

If you can, keep all this information in a notebook. You can then track time wasters and time savers over a long period and make this notebook a great tool. Take it seriously, it has grand repercussions. We will explore the next part, once you have some data to work with. Go on, get going.

Good luck. Have a great day

Study zone: comfortable, not too comfortable

At your place? Let's look at where you are going to study this year. Go to where you study most. Is there a television there? Is it usually on? Is there loud music? Are there usually other people in the room? Is it hard to look outside? Is the fresh air flow minimal? Is the light dim? Do you lie on your bed and get too comfortable for your thoughts to be electric and clear? Do you jam ipod buds in your ears and blast music into your head? Do you cram all night before exams? Are your study sessions one long, boring sitting? Do you study without giving yourself some kind of reward? OK there are a lot of things to consider for an ideal study spot. And you can see what we're getting at.

To give yourself the best use of valuable time when you can get to study.

That's what you want. Maximum benefit for the limited time allocated to study. How will you turn all the answers to the above questions into "No."? Seriously, put a plan into action. If there is no such place in your house, then substitute a room at school during breaks or before or after school. See if you can find permission for this. Use the local library, on weekends if necessary. Oh, weekends are just for playing? Then you are just playing at being serious about giving yourself as much chance of success as possible. Do not kid yourself. Setting up a good area now will carry into the future. You will gradually and naturally set up your work area for best production automatically when others will struggle. It is not just for school.

Could you negotiate a quiet time in the house? Sometimes others do not realise the importance of letting your thoughts fully focus on the work of school and how it may help them in the future as your career grows. This may be tough when you are starting out. But every small victory counts. It is not always a final battle that wins but the skirmishes that make up the whole that prove to be decisive. If your success has been limited until now, do not give up. You may have to prove your intent. Step by step. Find the support. Email me.

What is ideal?

Sit at a table, comfortable chair. If possible have only the material you are working on lying on the table. Well lit. A window through which you can easily look outside and open for fresh air. If you have to have music, make it music you can tune out to so it does not interfere with some intense concentration. Make it easy to turn off now and then. Take short breaks from whatever you are doing, glance out at the day, turn off music and enjoy the silence, let knowledge sink in and work its way into your mind and thinking. Set a timeframe, say one hour. Then give yourself a complete break. Stand up. Stretch. Roll your eyes, they need a change too. Have a drink or snack. Limit the break to 5-10 minutes max.

Get serious about your success. Better School Marks is where you can easily start. You have to be there. Take what you can from it to most advantage you. Enjoy doing it. It is the successes, no matter how small, that we look to for our pleasure that we want to get out of school. They are selfishly just for us.