Making a Schedule and Sticking to It
By Michel Boudrias, Associate Professor of Marine Science and Environmental Studies, and Merrick Marino, Assistant Dean of Students
Opportunity & Challenge
The great thing about college is you have lots of freedom. A major challenge for most students coming straight out of high school is managing all the new freedom – parents aren’t around and professors aren’t on top of you all the time so it’s up to you.
Easy Stuff – “Make the Plan”
This one is a no-brainer, but it’s worth reminding – write down the stuff you need to do. Yes we know that you already knew that. It’s one thing to know it and another thing to actually do it!
• Use to-do lists, daily/weekly/monthly planners, bulletin boards – whatever you like, just use something to write things down that you need to get done. Be creative – use colors, draw pictures, etc.
• Prioritize your lists. Identify what is most important to get done by color-coding, using asterisks (***), highlighting “must do” items, letter-coding (A=Most Important, B=Important, C=Least Important). Remember that not everything is important (don’t highlight all events!)
• Best advice! Break things down into smaller parts. For example, if you have a reading assignment of 100 pages, break it down into chunks of 20 pages and put it in your calendar . . .
Example:
Tuesday – morning read pages 1-20, afternoon pages 21-40
Wednesday – evening read pages 41-60
Thursday – morning read pages 61-80, evening pages 81-100
Friday – come to class prepared!
The same approach works for writing assignments (break down steps of preparing outline, writing introduction, writing body, writing conclusion, and revising), preparing for tests (break down initial review, preparing study notes, intensive study, and group study), and any other academic task that has a deadline/due date.
Hard Stuff – “Do the Do”
Making plans is easy, it’s the actual “doing” part that is tough. It’s especially tough in college with lots of distractions – roommates, noise, fun things going on, “IMing,” video games, etc. – and no one (aka Mom and Dad) looking over your shoulder.