PFS: Time Management

Rachel Lindhart Author

08/12/2020 Added

6 Plays

Description

Tips on success for managing your time as an undergraduate student.

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:07.878]Big Red Welcome. This is so cool for me!
[00:00:10.957]I'm so excited to be here with so many of
[00:00:13.568]you as you come back to campus or as you
[00:00:15.837]first arrive. My name is Dr. Manda
[00:00:18.476]Williamson, associate prof. in the Dept of
[00:00:21.298]Psychology. I'm so excited to be a part of
[00:00:23.360]this. Before we get into how we as faculty
[00:00:26.720]help to connect with you a little bit now
[00:00:28.908]that the semester has started, I just want
[00:00:31.171]to give a little background information
[00:00:33.458]about our role in Big Red Welcome.
[00:00:35.561]We started meetings back in January.
[00:00:37.734]I've been thinking about you all since
[00:00:39.685]January. And one of the areas where I
[00:00:42.380]thought was really important that you have
[00:00:44.970]some time to at least look at faculty, was
[00:00:48.360]with respect to academics and how you
[00:00:50.489]transition from your experiences in high
[00:00:52.509]school to what your experiences are going
[00:00:54.580]to be like in college. And I just want to
[00:00:56.570]share - I hope this is okay - I'm going to
[00:00:58.590]share a personal narrative with you about
[00:01:00.790]my experience my first month of college.
[00:01:03.250]I walked into a classroom where I was
[00:01:06.037]pretty sure that people were having
[00:01:07.924]conversations that I must have walked
[00:01:10.064]in on late because I couldn't figure out
[00:01:12.164]what the heck they were talking about,
[00:01:14.124]and I felt as though I didn't belong
[00:01:16.349]and it was really difficult for me to
[00:01:18.149]speak to my faculty members, to speak to
[00:01:20.239]my instructors about the confusion that I
[00:01:22.274]was experiencing. I'm from a really rural
[00:01:24.356]part of Pennsylvania and so college was
[00:01:27.104]just this institution that I was having a
[00:01:29.106]problem connecting with. I don't want that
[00:01:31.539]for you. I've been thinking about you
[00:01:33.308]since January and dang it all to heck at
[00:01:35.487]least you're going to see from some of us
[00:01:38.453]how excited we are to have you here and
[00:01:40.445]how we want to help you right now even
[00:01:42.357]before the semester starts.
[00:01:44.409]When I first sat down in my
[00:01:45.979]classes, the faculty members all handed me
[00:01:48.534]this like 3-4 page paper and it said
[00:01:51.530]'Syllabus' at the top, and as I fumbled
[00:01:54.066]through the syllabus at the end there was
[00:01:56.095]a schedule for the entire semester of
[00:01:57.908]readings and I know that there were dates
[00:02:00.388]on those schedules, but I thought that it
[00:02:03.215]was like a trick. So I figured that, even
[00:02:06.282]though it says I'm supposed to read the
[00:02:08.248]first three chapters of Unit 1 by the end
[00:02:10.293]of Week 4, I thought that was maybe for
[00:02:13.040]the lazy students. That was their
[00:02:15.305]schedule. So I read everything in every
[00:02:19.002]one of my classes for the entire first
[00:02:21.333]Unit in every one of my classes in the
[00:02:24.031]first week of the semester, and it nearly
[00:02:26.159]killed me. And so I don't want that to
[00:02:28.041]happen to you. And so what I want to talk
[00:02:30.093]to you today is, in particular, about a
[00:02:32.858]topic that we call "time management."
[00:02:34.856]I know that's kind of a buzzword, but what
[00:02:37.120]literally it means is it's a way for you
[00:02:39.303]to control your day so you can achieve the
[00:02:41.709]goals that you have for yourself. It's the
[00:02:43.982]ability to prioritize all of the events
[00:02:46.748]that you have going on in a way so that
[00:02:49.377]you get done what you must get done,
[00:02:51.428]and that's usually the things you don't
[00:02:53.490]like to do, but that you have to get done,
[00:02:56.238]in order to free up time to do the things
[00:02:58.449]that you want to do and to be able to
[00:03:00.251]enjoy those things more fully. As an adult
[00:03:02.546]what you need to kind of wrap your head
[00:03:04.448]around is the fact that most of us spend a
[00:03:06.833]good portion of our day doing the things
[00:03:08.815]that we don't like to do, so that gives us
[00:03:10.897]time to freely enjoy the things that we do
[00:03:12.971]like to do, that require money, materials,
[00:03:16.390]and that require connections with others.
[00:03:18.770]We kind of have to earn that as an adult.
[00:03:21.102]And so time management is just a way for
[00:03:23.350]you to gain control over your day, to
[00:03:25.215]organize how you spend your day every day.
[00:03:27.436]Now a lot of you are probably thinking,
[00:03:29.405]'Meh, I was in four years of high school,
[00:03:31.576]and I did fine. I got admitted to college.
[00:03:34.074]I already know how to time-manage!' But I
[00:03:36.085]want to tell you, College is different.
[00:03:38.364]The reason why time management will be
[00:03:40.585]challenged in college is because the
[00:03:42.345]academics are different in college. I wish
[00:03:44.427]somebody would have told me this long
[00:03:46.865]ago. When
[00:03:47.934]you get to college is the learning - when
[00:03:49.933]you learn the stuff that you need to learn
[00:03:51.992]in order to do well on your tests is
[00:03:53.921]different in terms of when it occurs. In
[00:03:56.556]high school, about 80% of what you learn
[00:03:58.949]happens in a classroom with your teacher.
[00:04:01.532]So if you sit and listen really well, in
[00:04:03.651]a lot of cases you learn a lot of the
[00:04:05.421]material and you can do well on your tests
[00:04:07.488]In college that's flipped. Only 20% of
[00:04:11.370]the new learning takes place in the
[00:04:13.888]classroom. Eighty percent of your learning
[00:04:16.394]is your responsibility and you need to
[00:04:18.295]accomplish that outside of class. In
[00:04:20.515]addition, the things that we do in our
[00:04:23.786]time together, between your instructor
[00:04:26.451]and you, is quite different. There is more
[00:04:30.462]that you have to read, there is more that
[00:04:32.506]you will have to write, there is more
[00:04:34.545]you have to study when you're in college,
[00:04:36.825]and the individual assignments tend to
[00:04:38.827]have a depth that is more challenging than
[00:04:42.098]the kind of assignments in high school
[00:04:44.514]and your test are also more
[00:04:46.328]time-consuming, and they test you more
[00:04:48.909]deeply, so that when you come to class,
[00:04:50.874]rather than learning something new, we ask
[00:04:52.973]you to take what you have already learned
[00:04:55.008]and consider it more deeply. So you're
[00:04:56.842]going to take new concepts or terms
[00:04:58.629]that you learn, be comparing and
[00:05:00.786]contrasting them, you're going to be
[00:05:02.588]looking for how they all tend to fit
[00:05:04.301]together in a big concept map, you're
[00:05:06.547]going to look for cause and effects, so
[00:05:08.503]you have to do the work outside of class
[00:05:10.495]to learn that baseline material in order
[00:05:12.499]to be able to use it more deeply in class
[00:05:14.585]time. So because the academics are
[00:05:16.245]much more deep, a college experience is
[00:05:18.902]almost the same type of time commitment
[00:05:20.943]that you would have in a full-time job.
[00:05:22.811]And to just break that down for you
[00:05:24.745]if you have 15 credit hours, that
[00:05:26.389]means that 15 hours of your week are
[00:05:28.188]spent in class, and that means that you
[00:05:30.245]probably also need to devote at least 2
[00:05:32.238]hours per night to each of those classes.
[00:05:34.788]So, if you do that 7 days a week, that's
[00:05:36.991]fourteen hours. So minimally, we're
[00:05:38.838]talking almost 30 hours per week right
[00:05:40.697]now, and that's not considering whether or
[00:05:43.319]not you have any zero-credit classes that
[00:05:45.297]you have to attend, and that's not also
[00:05:47.422]considering how many hours you're spending
[00:05:49.450]in a lab a week. So please bear that in
[00:05:51.339]mind, your time commitments are different
[00:05:53.455]in college. What we hope to avoid, I hope
[00:05:56.024]you never have the experience of, when you
[00:05:59.255]get through this with me today is this
[00:06:01.120]experience of 2:00 in the morning, your
[00:06:03.318]computer crashes, you don't have access
[00:06:05.219]to any other computer to submit your
[00:06:07.069]assignment, and now it's going to be late.
[00:06:09.190]That's a horrible feeling you're not going
[00:06:11.366]to sleep well. By using time effectively,
[00:06:13.460]controlling how you spend your day, and
[00:06:15.449]by being proactive or thinking in advance
[00:06:17.573]about how to organize your day, time
[00:06:19.555]management will help you not run into
[00:06:21.367]those troubles. So what I want to show you
[00:06:23.402]are actually 3 schedules that you should
[00:06:25.466]all be keeping in order to gain control
[00:06:28.131]over the semester, over the week, and over
[00:06:31.986]every day, and you're going to have
[00:06:34.209]to do this specifically and intentionally
[00:06:36.725]at first. It's going to suck. It's going
[00:06:39.489]to take up some of your time, but as you
[00:06:41.615]achieve success, and you find that you're
[00:06:43.612]meeting deadlines effectively and you're
[00:06:45.565]doing well on tests, you likely won't have
[00:06:47.876]to write so much down on a daily basis to
[00:06:50.030]track your day. But do this first so
[00:06:53.127]that you can get the stuff out of the way
[00:06:55.175]successfully that you don't want to do
[00:06:58.723]that's, you know, like academics, ack! I
[00:07:02.146]know. And then you can figure out how much
[00:07:04.335]time you have to play. Work hard so that
[00:07:07.332]you can play. You don't come here to play
[00:07:10.796]and then work the work in, or you're going
[00:07:12.838]to find that you're not going to be here
[00:07:14.777]next year. That's kind of the hard part
[00:07:17.875]about college is that you are going to
[00:07:20.065]be held accountable for the performance
[00:07:21.970]that you put out. So let's get out in
[00:07:24.162]front of this stuff right now, and commit
[00:07:26.119]to doing well by managing our time. So
[00:07:28.754]the first thing I want you to think about.
[00:07:30.800]What do you think your schedule actually
[00:07:33.013]looks like? You all have been here for
[00:07:35.909]probably a week now, you all do have
[00:07:37.649]a syllabus. So I'm going to share my
[00:07:39.761]screen. I'm going to show you
[00:07:41.211]how to get out in front of all of
[00:07:42.894]the important due dates and deadlines.
[00:07:46.923]So, you have this calendar. It's called
[00:07:48.862]Long-Term Planning. I did not make this.
[00:07:50.805]It's from a success coach at the
[00:07:52.678]University of Tennessee - Knoxville named
[00:07:54.659]Barbara Pate. It's important that we give
[00:07:56.679]credit where it's is due. But this is
[00:07:58.498]what you should be doing when
[00:08:00.062]you get back to your rooms tonight. Long-
[00:08:02.015]Term Plan. So you see you have Monday
[00:08:03.833]through Sunday, and you have Week 1 all
[00:08:06.284]the way down to Week 15. In each one
[00:08:08.975]of those boxes, you should put wherever
[00:08:10.848]you have a test or a paper due or an
[00:08:13.039]assignment due that's already listed in
[00:08:14.944]your syllabus. You should have all of
[00:08:16.892]those deadlines in that particular
[00:08:18.608]calendar. Now the next thing you have to
[00:08:20.916]do is ask yourself: 'How do I want to
[00:08:23.037]spend my time each week?' and I don't mean
[00:08:26.194]'Because everything should feel good and
[00:08:28.112]I should always have fun.' That is not how
[00:08:30.131]we're going to operate as adults. You have
[00:08:32.130]to ask yourself, 'What priorities do I
[00:08:35.054]need to make in my life so that in four
[00:08:36.998]years I am out of here with a degree and
[00:08:39.397]I'm going to have a standard of living
[00:08:41.255]that's better than my parents.' So we
[00:08:43.121]can't only think about having fun, we have
[00:08:45.135]to think about how we're going to work in
[00:08:47.168]our college experiences and our
[00:08:48.703]assignments. Let's look at short-
[00:08:50.548]term planning. What I would encourage you
[00:08:52.674]to do is, y'all have phones, take a screen
[00:08:55.877]shot of this and recreate it. This is also
[00:08:58.041]from the University of Tennessee, I did
[00:08:59.915]not make this. When you think about all
[00:09:02.434]the demands that you have in a given week,
[00:09:04.686]those demands are: tests that you should
[00:09:07.600]study for at least 8 days in advance is
[00:09:11.231]when you should begin studying, in small
[00:09:13.612]bursts of about 20 minutes. Alright? So
[00:09:15.916]write down how much you have to study in
[00:09:18.025]each class every day in order to be ready
[00:09:20.141]for your test. Write down all the times
[00:09:22.221]that you have to be in class. Write down
[00:09:24.270]your work schedule and then also write
[00:09:26.228]down off to the side, 'I would really like
[00:09:28.250]to see my friends or my family.' Do not
[00:09:30.831]neglect that. When you're managing your
[00:09:32.816]time, that means you make time for
[00:09:34.462]yourself. According to the
[00:09:36.043]priorities that you have, and the things
[00:09:38.321]that we prioritize that come to the top of
[00:09:40.374]our list are those things that are the
[00:09:42.322]most important and the most urgent to us.
[00:09:44.388]So stick them in your short-term planning
[00:09:47.385]calendar just for the week. This is how
[00:09:50.238]you plan for every week. So this is
[00:09:52.050]something you should do the Saturday or
[00:09:53.979]the Sunday before your Monday class begins
[00:09:55.977]so that you know what you need to do for
[00:09:57.879]your week. And then lastly, that
[00:10:00.133]Sunday night, figure out 'What do I got to
[00:10:02.289]do tomorrow?' Where you list things
[00:10:04.659]according to how critically important they
[00:10:06.801]are to you and the things that are
[00:10:08.450]the most important are the things that if
[00:10:10.564]you fail to meet that item, if you fail
[00:10:13.896]to successfully execute that particular
[00:10:16.094]item, that failure could cause irreparable
[00:10:19.185]harm to the goals that you have set for
[00:10:21.256]yourself four or five years from now. So
[00:10:23.877]if you have a test, that goes to the top.
[00:10:25.849]If you have a paper due, that goes to the
[00:10:27.818]top. If you want to go on a date, that
[00:10:29.749]doesn't go to the top. That goes after you
[00:10:31.883]achieve that five-year goal that you had
[00:10:34.829]set for yourself in this individual
[00:10:37.043]activity today that must done successfully
[00:10:39.667]If it's important for you to go out, get
[00:10:43.705]all of the things that you need to get
[00:10:45.549]done this week done and then think about
[00:10:47.502]what can I do Friday night and Saturday
[00:10:49.467]night that will enable me to healthfully
[00:10:52.114]relax? And that's when you start to put in
[00:10:56.171]the social time that you have. Don't ever
[00:10:58.609]forget to schedule time for you. I'm going
[00:11:01.024]to stop sharing again because I want to
[00:11:03.102]finish off really quickly by saying
[00:11:04.981]when you manage your time effectively, you
[00:11:07.897]will gain control over your day and you
[00:11:10.349]will minimize your stress load that comes
[00:11:12.981]as deadlines approach. The more you can
[00:11:15.562]get out in front of your deadlines, the
[00:11:17.493]easier your semester is going to be for
[00:11:19.626]you. And please, do not think that even
[00:11:22.473]though I know academics are so critically
[00:11:24.561]important, I also know that it's
[00:11:26.278]critically important that you maintain
[00:11:28.157]balance in your life. So work into your
[00:11:31.032]schedule the time when you're going to
[00:11:33.381]work out. Work into your schedule and
[00:11:35.450]don't ever sacrifice this time. You may
[00:11:38.993]have to shorten it, but work it in. Time
[00:11:41.194]when you're meeting with your friends,
[00:11:43.039]when you're meeting with your family. When
[00:11:45.175]you're going to sleep. That's important
[00:11:47.769]too. That calendar that you keep - don't
[00:11:50.333]put anything in there after midnight
[00:11:52.215]please. You can get your stuff done in
[00:11:54.347]time. And then lastly, don't forget to
[00:11:56.442]come into regular contact with the
[00:11:58.159]organizations that are most important to
[00:12:00.132]you. Your church life, your community
[00:12:01.907]volunteering that you do, any
[00:12:03.522]organizations that you're in on campus.
[00:12:05.386]And so hopefully this gives you
[00:12:07.243]ideas about how to get out
[00:12:08.759]in front of your semester. I want you
[00:12:10.580]to know the faculty are rooting for you.
[00:12:12.611]We're excited you're here. I miss people!
[00:12:15.327]It was really great to be able to interact
[00:12:17.395]with you, even if it's this way. So you
[00:12:19.336]all have a great day, and welcome to UNL.

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

PFS: Time Management

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Comments