How To Effectively Manage Your Uni Workload
Effectively managing your Uni workload can be tough, particularly if you are balancing a number of things, or if you are doing joint honours. I study joint honours English Literature and Publishing and I am known as the mum by my uni flatmates and my friends at home; I think this partly to do with how organised I am and how together I seem. Here are some of the things I do to ensure that I manage my Uni workload and in turn my life.
1. To Do Lists
I live my life by my to-do lists, I love writing them and I love the feeling I get when I cross something off. I will list all the tasks I want to get done, no matter how small, and simply strike them through when they are done – it does not need to be anything fancy. I will write down all my uni work down as a priority, in order of when it is due so that I am not leaving anything to the last minute. Then I’ll add any other jobs I need to get done, like hoovering my floor or doing my food shopping. I try and write mine the night before so that I know what the next day holds and so that it doesn’t take any time out of my day the next day.
2. Make your notes in the lectures and revisit lecture slides
I always take my laptop (and the charger, never forget the charger) to lectures and compile all my notes from a module in one neat document. Sometimes the lecturers may talk fast or for whatever reason, you can’t go to them, so make sure you revisit the notes you have made and check them against the lecturer’s slides and notes; just to make sure you have not missed any vital points and so that when it comes to revision you have everything you need and you don’t need to go and hunt down materials from weeks ago.
3. Early to bed, Early to rise
Now I know you are Uni students and not every night can be an early night, with all the partying and whatnot, but try and keep a set day for going out. I try and keep my weekends as work days and my weekends for leisure activities. I try to head to bed before 10 so that I have time to chill out and watch some Netflix before bed, it makes it so much easier to get up the next day. I aim to get up around 8 so that I have a good few hours of working time before I can go and hang out with my flatmates. A few productive hours in the morning and a couple more in the afternoon make the workload less overwhelming and it also gives you time for you.
4. Get yourself a planner
I have always had a planner all throughout school and I credit all my success to it. I write everything in my planner – homework, lectures, seminars, birthdays, work schedule, other events, when articles are due and deadlines. This helps me to better manage my time; when you know when everything is and what you are doing it makes it much harder to feel stressed out about the uni workload. I cannot overstate the importance of having a planner where you can just jot everything down.
5. Diet and Exercise
This last one is something I’m sure everyone preaches to you but that’s because it’s essential. How are you meant to manage anything without being able to manage yourself? Having three meals a day and getting in a little exercise can make you feel so much better in yourself and can also give you a well-deserved break from uni work. Recently I have been getting up at 8am, going on a little jog around the sports field and then coming back and having a bowl of cereal and cracking on with work. This way you cannot procrastinate and say you are hungry or that you need to have a jog because you will have already done both these things.
I hope these tips help you to manage your uni workload. Let us know if they do and if you have any tips and tricks of your own that help you to manage comment them below!
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