Reprint of: 
Introduction to Time Management For University Students
Counseling and Development Center
York University, Toronto, Canada
Copyright (Permission Requested)

In this section:

• Line-ups

• Commuting

• Between Classes

• Interruptions

Have you ever thought of the amount of time you spend waiting in line-ups, commuting, waiting for your next class to start, or on the telephone? If you ever want a wake-up call try to calculate it for yourself. You may already have a sense of this if you've tracked your time. After a while, the few minutes here and there amount to days, months and even years. Since we all find ourselves in these situations at one time or another, we should carefully consider our use of this time. Each time shift listed below contains its unique challenges, and we present you with some really interesting options. These options, if used will transport you from your present state of time management to a whole new level of effectiveness.

Line-ups

Did you know that, over the course of your life, you will spend approximately 8 years waiting in lines? It's true! At the library check-out, waiting for the bus, waiting for the light to turn green at an intersection, buying tickets, and even at amusement parks you find yourself staring mindlessly at the back of someone else's head! Why? Think of what you could be doing. If you carried around a book or some photocopied readings you could be actively engaging your brain in something interesting and exciting.

Listening to taped cassettes of your lecturesis an ideal way to fill times like these, and the review will profoundly aid your recall come exam time. While some people in the line get frustrated and leave, and others wait unproductively, you will be expanding your mind and enriching your education in what is normally considered wasted time.

Commuting

Imagine, most North Americans spend between 1 and 2 hours commuting from home to work or school every day. If you commute, you will probably find 5 to 10 hours of your week taken up in a car, bus or subway. In one year, your commute works out to between 250 and 500 hours. Imagine what it would be like over the course of 4 years. If you study while you commute you could shift up to 2000 hours into your education. That's equivalent to attending all of the required lectures in every course of a 4-year university degree. Impressive! Imagine what your grades would be like.

Now, some readers might say "Well, I'd love to get grades like that, but I just can't study on the bus/subway/walking across campus ..." If you think this, consider the amount of time you spend reading ads, signs, posters and billboards. You are getting good at identifying products that other people want to sell you. All you really need to do is change what you are reading. Even 5 minutes and a couple of pages work out to hours and books. If you happen to be driving, don't read - that's dangerous. But, study anyway. Tape your professor's lecture or yourself reading. You will be amazed at how much you can learn by listening. The key to commuting time is quite simply, use it or lose it.

Between Classes

Quite often you might find that you have a chunk of time, maybe an hour or two, between classes. Without advanced planning you never know exactly what is going to happen during this time. Sometimes, even with a plan, you may find the time to be unproductive. Imagine that you have an hour during which you would like to get some reading done. You find a seat take your book, open it up and begin reading. Depending on where you sat (1, 2 or 3), what happens next can be quite different.

1. In the student centre you experience a deluge of sight and sound distractions. Some few students may be able to read here, but for the majority of us there is so much going on that we won't be able to hear ourselves think. You look around you and see a few others with books open, but only about one in thirty will keep her/his eyes on the book for any duration. Even then, there is no guarantee that they are studying.

2. Inside the library, near the entrance, you choose one of the first open seats in order to save time. It certainly is much quieter than the student centre and you really start to do some reading. However, you may find that you still look up from your book every so often as a particularly attractive passer-by catches your attention. Then you begin daydreaming and your quality reading time goes out the window.

3. In a quiet study area in the library, you find your self seated among others who are also reading quietly. The sight and sound distractions are mostly separated from the reading area. Here is an area where you feel you can really get some work done. The hour passes with few distractions and the reading goes smoothly. By the end of the hour, you may find that you've accomplished much more reading than you thought possible.

Interruptions

Have you ever sat down to study, and not two minutes later something like this happens...

RING, RING

• You: Hello?

• Your Friend: Hi it's whatcha doing?

• You: Oh, I just sat down with a highlighter and a hot pile of notes. I've got some stuff here that I don't quite understand yet so I wanted to go over it.

• Your Friend: Well, I'll tell you what. My boss just gave me two tickets to tonight's game. Third row! Right above the dugout! Whaddaya say?

Or maybe you find something like this occurring more often than you would like...

KNOCK, KNOCK

• You: Come in...

• Your little sister (those of you with little brothers can probably come up with a few hundred thousand examples of your own): look what mom bought me! A barbie-doll just like the one in the movie! Wanna see?

Or perhaps, something like this...

• Your father: get your head out of the book there lad and come take a look at this. They've got some guy on the news that they're taking off to jail for watering his lawn in a rain storm! Can you believe that! Come on, you're gonna miss it!

Whatever the case may be, you are interrupted. Your train of thought has been derailed and getting back on track could be difficult. There are a few things that you can do to minimize the impact on your study time.

• First of all, try to find a place where it is difficult for people to find you. That way you are more likely to have longer periods of interruption-free work.

• If you can't find a hideout, consider an attention getting sign on your door - "Developing photographs - please do not disturb" might be a kind sign that will work.

• Tell the person interrupting that you are studying and that you really need to continue. Some people are considerate of this and will volunteer to come back or call later. If this is the case, recommend a time when you know you will be free.

• As you are interrupted, stand up and remain standing. Stand-up interruptions are usually much shorter than sit-down ones. When you stand make sure that you mention how important it is that you continue your study uninterrupted.

• Ask them if you could become involved with their request later, after you have finished studying. If it is only a short request that you can take care of in a couple of minutes, it may be worth while to do it now. In this case it is helpful to inform the person interrupting that you can only space a few minutes and you intend to return to your studies immediately upon completion of the task. That should help keep you from getting side-tracked and over-involved. This is by no means an exhaustive list of options.
• There must be hundreds of ways of dealing with interruptions. In fact, entire books have been written on the subject. If you find yourself falling victim to constant interruptions don't give up hope. Just keep trying different approaches until you find a few that work for you. The payoffs over the course of your life will astound you.

Answer to Pareto's Priority Puzzler

80? - Hah! You've got to be kidding right? If students spent 80% of their time doing effective and important things do you think we would be sitting here right now talking about time management?

60? - no

40? - Not quite! But give it another try.

10? - no

20? - Yes! Scary isn't it? We spend roughly 20% of our time doing the things that are important to us. Do you know what that also means? It means we waste 80% of our time. Now maybe you have caught yourself wishing for more hours in the day. Certainly you wouldn't wish for more time so you could waste it. You would want to do something valuable with it. While modern science hasn't found a way to stretch the day beyond 24 hours, Pareto's principle teaches us that we can get these extra hours simply by stealing the time from wasteful activities. You will see this principle in action when we talk about planning and time tracking.

Always Under Construction

Last Updated:
Wednesday, July 04, 2007

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