Introduction
Do you know this too? You have to write an English essay by tomorrow, in a few days there is a math test, next week there is a physics and geography exam, your mother has demanded that you finally clean your room and you also want to go to the movies with your girlfriend. You don’t know what to start with first, because when you do one thing, the other is haunting your mind. And when you finally get something done, you are left with the feeling that there is way too little time for so many chores!
Explanation – Goal
The reason for such experiences with studentsÍnnen – by the way also with employed people, ask only your parents! – is due to a wrong handling of time. Managers and other people who think they are important attend sinfully expensive courses to learn how to handle their precious time better – they become masters of time.
The first secret of the Time Master:
Before you can become a Time Master, you need to know what activities you do at all, for how long and within what time. The best way to do this is with such a schedule!
With it you keep a very precise record of your daily routine for one week (in minutes for the individual activities from getting up to going to bed). After that week, take the schedule and organize the activities into groups (e.g. school, commuting, eating, sleeping, running errands, studying, doing homework, bathroom and toilet, free time). Then add up how much time you need for each activity on a weekly average. Here is an example of such a summary for a group of students:
You may be surprised at how much time some activities take; in any case, you are now on the right track to becoming a Time Master. Now check if the time spent on each activity is appropriate or if something takes too much time (e.g. watching TV). For which activities would you need more time? Where could you specifically cut back? With time you will learn to estimate better and better, how much time you need for the daily things in life (eating, sleeping), how much fixed time you have e.g. for school or sports, how much you need for an exam or schoolwork preparation, how much rest you need to concentrate on studying, how much time you have for homework and studying. So the first secret of Time Masters is that they know exactly how much time they have and how much they need for each work.
The second secret of the Time Master
Now that you know how much time you need for each activity, you can make a plan for the next week. Write down the tasks you want to do in the next week – e.g. learn the vocabulary for the school work, study for the geo-test. You determine how important the tasks are, in which order you want to do them and how much time you estimate you will need for them. You then distribute these tasks over several days. It is better to study 30 minutes a day for six days than 180 minutes at once. Of course you have to take care that you need breaks between the learnng times! Just remember vocabulary learning with flashcards!
The second secret of Time Masters is that they do one task after another, working according to a plan.
Time Masters always know exactly what still needs to be done and, above all, what has already been done! They tick this off in their schedule!
Important: If it doesn’t work out with the adherence to your plan, then that’s no problem, because no Time Master has ever fallen from the sky! After a few weeks of practice with planning, you’ll get the hang of it!
If you feel like it, send us your weekly plans by e-mail!