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Time Management Strategies

The Latin expression carpe diem becomes even more exciting and possible through these tips to help you optimize your time and seize the day.

Tips to maximize your time:

  • Know your priorities and set realistic goals
  • Know yourself, are you: The Early Bird, The Balancing Act, The Pressure Cooker or The Improviser?
  • Avoid time wasters
  • Avoid multitasking
  • Practice routine & avoid procrastination
  • Be flexible
  • Understand the control factor: Know what you can and cannot control
  • The 2-to-1 Rule: 2 hours of work for every 1 credit hour of class time
  • Build in rewards
  • Use planners/graphic organizers
  • Be Present by Prioritizing Well-being

Considerations for home time management:

  • Incorporate your meal planning, parenting, caregiving, and personal care into your weekly schedule. It will help you balance your time and take care of priorities 
  • When doing house chores, listen to a podcast, a class lecture, or to your favorite music
  • Plan family/caregiving meals ahead of time
  • Do not be shy to ask for help
  • Make time for yourself 
  • Remember you are not alone in this. 
  • Utilize campus resources and services

Three steps to set a Weekly Study Schedule

Step 1: Organize and calculate your available time

To create an effective time management schedule, the first step is to determine how much time you have available to study and how much time you have for weekly activities and commitments. You can utilize the online time management calculator to understand how you are organizing your time throughout the week. Begin by entering the number of credits you are taking, and then add the amount of time you spend working, commuting, cooking/eating, sleeping, socializing, as well as the time you spend on personal hygiene, recreation/self-care, household duties, screen time and student organizations. The calculator will help you see how minor changes can help you organize your time more efficiently.

You can also download this time management weekly summary activity template (PDF) to see where the tasks you need to accomplish on a weekly basis may fit within your schedule. These can be adjusted and serve as a tool to help you be aware of the things you need to do (keep in mind that this is just a template and may be adapted to fit the needs of the individual student).

Step 2: Create a weekly task list

Think about your courses and the tasks that you need to complete for each course (such as reading before class, actively reviewing notes, completing practice problems, reviewing after class, or working on a long-term project or paper). Plan out your tasks for each course. This will provide you with a better sense of how to spend your dedicated study time each week. By using the weekly course task list, you can keep track of the things you need to accomplish and do each week. Make sure to think about long-term projects you may need to work towards or weekly assignments.

Check out the examples below for what may make sense for a course you are taking. The numbers in parentheses are an estimate of how much time per week you should spend on that task. For example, for your Literature course, you may have a lot of reading to do each week, which may take up to 4 hours. For Biology, you may be covering a chapter a week which could take a couple of hours to read.


Example Weekly Course Task List for two courses:

Course: Biology 2 
Meeting times: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Thursday Recitation
Task List (Approximately 9 hours)

  1. Read before lectures (2 hours)
  2. Review notes after lectures (2 hours)
  3. Complete homework problems (1.5 hours)
  4. Complete practice questions (1 hour)
  5. Review previously learned concepts (1 hour)
  6. Tutoring and/or office hours (1 hour)

Course: American Literature
Meeting times: Tuesday and Thursday
Task List (Approximately 6 hours)

  1. Read before class (4 hours)
  2. Review notes after class (1 hour)
  3. Complete weekly writing reflection online (1 hour)
  4. Research/write paper (1 hour)
  5. Visit the Writing Center before paper deadline (.5 hour)

Download a blank weekly task list (PDF).

Step 3: Create your weekly schedule

After considering and prioritizing all your activities, responsibilities, and your tasks for college courses, you can map them onto a weekly schedule, which will provide you with a visual representation of your time and priorities. This does NOT mean that you keep this same schedule every week but serves as your personalized general template to organize the tasks you need to accomplish and adjust where need be on a weekly basis.

For classes that are web-based or taken asynchronously (which means the course has no set time in the schedule and you will complete it by self-directed time), create a regular timeslot in your schedule as if that would have been the scheduled time for the course. This will help you keep on track, so you do not fall in the trap of procrastination or not realizing the extent of the material that needed to be covered. Working regularly on course material enables you to sustain the information and memory of the content you learned. You can read more on spaced repetition in the Active Study Strategies section or schedule an appointment with your academic coach to discuss effective self-directed course studying.

You can create your weekly time management schedule in an organizer, on your phone on your computer, a graphic organizer, on a whiteboard or notice board calendar, anywhere that works best for you. Digital schedules work well as you can create one week's schedule to repeat on a weekly basis, and simply adjust or edit any changes as you move from week to week. You can also use this template: Time Management Weekly Summary Template