Every Monday, firstpoint publishes five points about a topic related to life at university. This week, teaching restarts for most courses this week, so we focus on maximising your study potential and help you feel on top of your studies during the summer term…
POINT ONE: IT’S IMPORTANT TO ASK FOR SUPPORT…
It’s not too late to access the wide range of specialist support available, such as the Writers in Residence, meet with an Academic Liaison Librarian and have a tutorial with your Personal Academic Tutor. This combination of advice and guidance could help you work towards producing higher quality pieces of work, potentially improving your overall degree classification.
By approaching a piece of work in a planned and organised way, you are more likely to avoid last minute rushes and carry out each stage more efficiently and effectively.
Find out more about study skills support on the firstpoint webpage
POINT TWO: BE REALISTIC…
It’s helpful to have an overview of all your commitments, so you are taking everything into consideration in your planning. Remember to include responsibilities such as your course needs, your job and your family. Don’t forget to include time for relaxing and taking good care of yourself by eating well and getting a good night’s sleep. Once you have a list, it will make it easier to prioritise your workload and start making a plan!
It’s important to be realistic when planning; think about what is involved with each task and how long it is likely to take. Be realistic with your timescales and give yourself enough time for each item. Some contingency time will also allow you to manage any unforeseen events, making sure you can still meet your deadlines.
POINT THREE: MAKE A PLAN…
When you have developed a clear idea of your key activities and their related tasks, you can begin to make plans, remember deadlines and ensure everything is covered. Many people find it useful to plan their time in a variety of ways:
- A long-term timetable showing regular and predictable events in your week.
- A detailed weekly plan highlighting your workload over a seven-day period.
- A daily diary, deciding first thing in the morning what is to be done that day. The list can be checked throughout the day, ticking off those tasks already achieved.
POINT FOUR: PRIORITISE AND STAY MOTIVATED…
When you are faced with many different demands on your time, it’s essential that you can prioritise your workload. A task may be important to complete, but other tasks require prioritising due to the urgency of factors such as a deadline…
Asking yourself these questions may help:
- What is urgent and demands my immediate attention?
- What is unchanging and can be routinely planned for?
- What can I prepare in advance?
Motivation will be helped by having a clear focus and indication of when you will be finishing.
- Take real breaks. Leave your work area completely, have a stroll outside or take a refreshment.
- Try to avoid being drawn into scrolling social media or a conversation that you will find difficult to break away from – set yourself app limits if this helps you!
- Introduce variety so you’re not always doing the same activity.
- Try completing tasks that you find uninteresting at the start of a work period – get them out of the way so that you can better focus on the rewarding aspects of your work.
POINT FIVE: EVALUATE YOUR PROGRESS…
Finally, you should assess how effectively you are fulfilling each of your commitments. Once you have developed an overview of your activities and tasks, you will need to reassess these as priorities change – life can sometimes throw your plans around, so how can you adapt?
If you have produced a plan for a project, keep this next to you and tick off areas of completed work. This is a helpful, visual way for you to see if you are on track and make final plans for completing unfinished pieces of work in good time.
Remember, there’s always help available so don’t struggle through alone, reach out if you feel you need any further advice!
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