Organising your time effectively
Organising your studies in sixth form is not just about ticking off the homework set each day...
To begin with, there is no longer a set homework timetable, meaning that you will have greater responsibility for juggling tasks and ensuring that you plan your time and complete all work by the set deadlines.
You will also find that you have a greater amount of 'free' time in which to complete set tasks and independent study. Initially, it can be tempting to fill this time with less productive activities....like drinking coffee and eating toast in the cafe area! While you can certainly spend a little time doing this each day, it will also be important for you to plan your time effectively so that you do not leave things until the last minute or fall behind.
It's also really important that you are honest with yourself, and others, about how easy you find it to plan and manage your time. There will be plenty of support and help available...but the first step is to acknowledge that you need to access it! Using of the materials below will help you to get a head start in time for September.
Independent study
What does ‘independent study’ suggest to you?
Understanding how you feel about the prospect of completing more independent study will be an important first step in ensuring you get off to a good start with your studies in September. Complete the following activity to help you assess what you may need help and support with initially.
- In pencil, underline all the words you associate with the phrase ‘independent study’.
- Now, using a bright marker pen, draw a circle around all those words that describe how you would like independent study to be. Use the blank spaces to add words of your own.
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Freedom |
Being left to my own devices |
Making my own success |
Less help |
Being in control |
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Isolation |
Free time |
Going it alone |
Responsibility |
Less guidance |
|
Maturity |
Good study management |
Pursuing my own interests |
Failure! |
|
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Enjoyment |
Working on my own |
Finding support |
Managing my time |
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Independent study can be all the things you would like it to be! University learning allows you a great deal of freedom to shape your learning experience to suit yourself. The better your study skills, the easier you will find managing that freedom so that you can enjoy yourself while undertaking independent study successful. It is up to you to manage that process well.
Adapted from: https://www.skills4studycampus.com/taster/Independent_study.html
Planning your study time
The following resources can help you to plan your time and prioritise the tasks you have to complete each week:
https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/courses/Study_Skills/time-management/index.html#/
Interleaving and Spaced Practice
There are some useful lessons that we can learn from cognitive science about the best way to plan and structure learning activities. Two techniques that will help you to learn and remember new information effective are interleaving and spaced practice. You can learn more here:
The Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique is a fabulous study strategy based on one of these kitchen timers:
It is now a world-famous time management strategy that is simple but highly effective:
You can read more about how to use it to improve your study technique here:
The Eisenhower Matrix
This model was supposedly developed by US President Dwight Eisenhower – he was considered a master of time management, always getting things done by deadlines. His famous alleged quote, ‘I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent,’ led to the development of what is now referred to as the Eisenhower Matrix, which is used all over the world in business.
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Urgent |
Not Urgent |
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Important |
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Not Important |
Eisenhower put all his tasks into one of the four boxes on the matrix. He then dealt with the ones that were urgent and important. Only when all the tasks in this box were complete did he move on to the other boxes.
Now try to organise your tasks using this framework!The Ten Minute Rule
If you are in a position where you are regularly putting up barriers to work, the Ten Minute Rule is a good way of breaking them down. What do we mean by barriers? Many students will avoid classwork or homework because it is hard. Instead they will:
- Do something more comfortable but less useful. They might copy out some notes or make a mind-map when really they know they should be doing the exam paper their teacher has set them under timed conditions.
- Claim that homework or independent work ‘isn’t realistic’ as a way of avoiding it. (‘This is pointless. The real exam will be totally different so why bother?’)
- Get into a deep discussion about something related so they feel like they are working.
- Look for someone else who isn’t doing it. Or in extreme cases, tell themselves that no one is doing it.
- Tell yourself you are going to do ten minutes of intense work. That’s all.
- Decide what work the ten minutes is going to be spent on.
- Clear a space and sit down with the right materials to hand.
- Start.
You may recognise these behaviours in yourselves and others – putting up barriers to independent work to avoid it. If this is you, the Ten Minute Rule is a good way to break through barriers. It’s very simple. You can, of course, stop after ten minutes. Even if you do, you’ve done ten minutes more work than you would have done. But what often happens is that ten minutes becomes twenty. Sometimes even half an hour or longer.
How to avoid procrastination
This short video will help to introduce you to the dangers of procrastination (and how to avoid it!):
This TED talk is an entertaining and more detailed look at procrastination:
These slides are from a talk which is part of our sixth form LEAP programme and give a really good range of strategies for tackling and beating procrastination:
The importance of sleep
When you're struggling to fit everything in, or to motivate yourself to start working earlier in the day, it can be tempting to sacrifice some time later at night in order to get caught up. These resources are a reminder of the importance of sleep and why getting enough good quality rest will be crucial to achieving success in your studies as well as maintaining good physical and mental health.