Time management and procrastination

To help you achieve your goals and track your progress, try to plan out your day, week and semester.

Treat your university work as a job with regular hours. For each 2 unit course, aim to spend around 10 hours a week for contact time and studying.

Plan your day

To ensure you stay on track, it's important to have a daily to-do list.

Download a copy of the day planner (PDF, 73.2 KB)

When creating a to-do list:

• list your tasks for the day
• organise the tasks by priority
• think about the size of each task, and allocate enough time to complete them
• try to include a variety of different tasks to help keep you motivated

To track your progress throughout the day, make sure you mark off tasks as you complete them.

Plan your week

A weekly planner can help you prioritise your weekly tasks and find a balance of activities that suits you.

Download a copy of the weekly planner (PDF, 117.2 KB)

Note down:

• work, social events or other commitments
• times for general study and assignment work
• travel and meal times.

Review your weekly planner and make sure that you haven't over-committed yourself. If there isn't enough time to complete everything that you want to achieve in one week, think about what you can remove or rearrange.

Plan your semester

Mapping out an entire semester will give you a broad overview of the demands on your time.

Download a copy of the semester planner (PDF, 1 MB)

Start by looking at your course profiles. Note down the key dates for:

• lectures
• tutorials
• practicals
• assignment due dates
• any other important dates.

Also include work, social events or other commitments you need to factor into your schedule.

You may want to use your semester planner as a wall planner, so you can refer to it easily. Remember to make it interesting to look at. As you go through the semester, update and modify your planner to keep yourself on track.

It's important to set goals: this will help you stay focused and to achieve what you set out to do.

Consider the goals you want to work towards. They may be short-term, such as something you'd like to complete in the next week, or long-term, such as career goals.

SMART goals

Use the acronym SMART to help you set focused goals. SMART goals are:

• Specific: clearly describe what you want to achieve.
• Measurable: include targets to help you measure your progress.
• Achievable: make sure your goal is achievable – if the task is too large break it down into smaller goals.
• Realistic: make sure you can achieve your goal with your available resources and time.
• Timed: set a deadline for achieving your goal so you have a clear target to work towards.

Example SMART goals

Some simple examples of SMART goals are:

• "I'll read through 2 chapters of my textbook by Tuesday."
• "Tomorrow after my lecture, I'll find 4 references for my assignment."
• "I'll read an extra book each month until the end of the year that isn't part of my university reading lists."

While it may seem easier to finish one assignment before starting the next one, you may not have enough time to complete everything. Instead, break your assignment into smaller tasks, so you can work on multiple assignments at once.

Expect to spend around 15–20 hours on a 1000–2000 word assignment.

To help manage your assignments:

• Use a semester planner to outline each course you are doing and what you'll need to complete each week.
• Put some time aside each week to work on your assignments for each subject.
• Review the steps for writing assignments to identify where to start and what to plan for each week.

If you're working with a group to complete your assignment, remember to include meeting times.

View an example assignment planner

When you have study or assignments to work on, it's easy to find plenty of other things to do.

If you find yourself absently checking your emails, scanning the web or obsessively cleaning, you may be procrastinating. If you're unable to stop, procrastination can be a problem and prevent you from completing your work.

Being aware that you're procrastinating is the first step to overcoming it.

Once you know you're procrastinating, try to identify why. You might be procrastinating because:

• you're unsure how to start
• you're afraid of failing
• you just don't feel like doing the work.

Getting procrastination under control

Once you've identified the cause, you can take steps to get your procrastination under control. To help overcome procrastination, try to:

• go over what you have to do and plan how you will approach the task
• break larger tasks into smaller subtasks
• set some priorities and focus on completing those first
• schedule out your time – work for an hour and then give yourself a short break
• reward yourself when you finish a task.

Remember that starting is usually the most difficult part and once you get into the task, you should find some momentum if you overcome distractions. Stay positive, and remind yourself that:

• the sooner you start, the sooner you'll be finished
• you'll feel better once you've completed the work
• you're capable of finishing the task, and you can stay focused
• by putting in hard work now, you'll gain better results.