Scheduling and Time Management
I’m here to tell you that, thankfully, grad school becomes much easier once you begin to manage your time in order to be the most productive person possible. During my second semester in the Creative Writing program, I balanced my social life, work life, and education in order to accomplish a variety of different goals, such as:
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I have found that managing my time efficiently through the use of schedules and to-do lists has assisted me in being hyper productive, which is a necessity in grad school. Hence, today I’m here to talk to you about time management, and how to simultaneously do the best that you can possibly do in CMU’s graduate program, as well as make time for your academic and creative writing. I’ll be providing some external resources for you to take a look at, as well as give some advice (though not always perfect) from my own experiences. Don’t get me wrong, grad school is hard, and if you’re anything like me, you’re still not 100% sure what it is you’d like to do with your life, and that’s fine. Grad school not only provides you with a basic foundation of concepts in your chosen area of study, but also forces you to manage your time wisely.
As you’ve probably already been told, if you plan to pursue a career in academia, the name of the game is time management; if you plan to work outside of academia, the busyness of the adult world is still oftentimes overwhelming. One strategy to follow is to schedule as much as possible in order to at least provide yourself with a foundation of how you will manage the tasks and obstacles in the days ahead. |
Learning from the Past
Picture the following: A youthful version of myself (imagine dark brown hair covering up most of my face, a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers) in my first class as a freshman in high school. 9th grade. A year of acne, AP classes, and Lunchables. Now, imagine my face contort when my English teacher told my class that it was imperative that we began scheduling our homework. Scheduling. Which meant I had to do more work at home, which meant less time for Halo 2 and Magic: The Gathering and staying over at friends’ houses watching scary movies. The word rolled off of her tongue and out her mouth like vomit, and I recoiled at its very utterance: Scheduling. I decided too quickly that I didn’t need to plan ahead, and for the next four years I embraced the stress of night-before essays and panicked reading, and watched as my GPA collapsed from a 3.5 to a 2.9 upon graduation.
Now, flash-forward: I’m a freshman in college (still rockin’ the same outfit, I might add). I’m in my first long-distance relationship, and not really sure what it is that I want to do with my life. In one of my first classes, we’re told: scheduling will help with the stress of constantly having so much to juggle. If I’m being honest, this advice didn’t really settle until I was a junior in my undergrad because I knew (or thought I knew) that I was different. The counter-productivity of this logic implied that I was invincible, and that I could spend all class writing poetry and short stories rather than taking notes. Once again, my GPA suffered the consequences. In the semester of my junior year, my father died and my long-distance relationship fell apart. It became necessary to restructure the way I was handling my time because I needed to no longer unnecessarily suffer while dealing with other sources of stress.
Since, I’ve done my best to schedule ahead at least two weeks at a time. Typically, I’ve chosen to do this on the day that I’ve found I have the most free-time. Sundays, for example, were often the days I chose to gather my thoughts, finish any last minute reading and assignments, and write down the tasks that needed to be done within the next couple of weeks.
Now, flash-forward: I’m a freshman in college (still rockin’ the same outfit, I might add). I’m in my first long-distance relationship, and not really sure what it is that I want to do with my life. In one of my first classes, we’re told: scheduling will help with the stress of constantly having so much to juggle. If I’m being honest, this advice didn’t really settle until I was a junior in my undergrad because I knew (or thought I knew) that I was different. The counter-productivity of this logic implied that I was invincible, and that I could spend all class writing poetry and short stories rather than taking notes. Once again, my GPA suffered the consequences. In the semester of my junior year, my father died and my long-distance relationship fell apart. It became necessary to restructure the way I was handling my time because I needed to no longer unnecessarily suffer while dealing with other sources of stress.
Since, I’ve done my best to schedule ahead at least two weeks at a time. Typically, I’ve chosen to do this on the day that I’ve found I have the most free-time. Sundays, for example, were often the days I chose to gather my thoughts, finish any last minute reading and assignments, and write down the tasks that needed to be done within the next couple of weeks.
Time ManagementAll students have suffered from, to some degree, the planning fallacy. According to Timothy Pychyl, a procrastination researcher at Carleton University, “people tend to overestimate how long it will take to complete short tasks and underestimate the time longer projects will take” (qtd. in Novotney). Furthermore, Pychyl claims that “one of the biggest myths when it comes to time management is that next week always looks free” (qtd. in Novotney).
Solutions, you ask? Well, Amy Novotney provides us with a few (via our friend Pychyl) in an article for the American Psychological Association. I’m going to paraphrase my top five favorites off of their list below. If you want to see the full list, check out the article.
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I Get My Advice from Princeton...In addition to the American Psychological Association, Princeton University offers more tips for managing time, creating schedules, and maintaining a balanced, successful life. Again, I’m only going to provide a few things off of the list, so take a look at the full list when you have a chance.
These are just a few suggestions for managing your time. Overall, you can try these out and see if they work for you. If not, do some of your own research. Snoop around the Internet, or ask your friends, family, or professors for suggestions. |
Zachary Riddle studies creative writing at CMU while working at the writing center. He specializes in poetry, but also enjoys writing fiction. His poems have appeared in Apex, The Central Review, The Blue Route, Glassworks, Open Palm Print, OxMag, and Yellow Chair Review, among others. After graduation, he seeks to work in publishing, comics, teaching, or writing center work. His dream is to write for television. He enjoys long walks in cemeteries at night, playing with Ouija boards, and watching scary movies.
Central Michigan University respects the diversity of values and opinions held by members of its community. The views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of Central Michigan University or its officers and trustees. The content of this page has not been reviewed or approved by Central Michigan University, and the author is solely responsible for its content.