Time Management on phd(Basic strategies)

Priorities!  Speaking of priorities, what are yours? What should you be focusing on? You probably have a lot of things to do, so assess how important and how urgent the tasks are; then make sure high priority tasks get done first and are not put off on a regular basis. Avoid time wasters!

Find a routine – if you don’t have a daily routine, it may be all too tempting to get into bad habits (like staying up until the early hours and then sleeping in until midday). Set yourself a time to wake up each day, and then do your best to stick to it.

Use all available time!  This is an especially good strategy if you are pressed for time.  You do not necessarily need a block of time in order to study. There are lots of study tasks that can be accomplished in short periods, such as reviewing main points of a reading or a lecture.

Access your current situation and audit your working week:

Undertaking an audit of your working week can feel like a painful exercise- a bit like looking at your spending at the end of the week, pulling all those receipts together in one place and discovering that you are bleeding money on things that you don’t need or don’t even really enjoy that much.
But this doesn’t have to be the case – particularly if you go about things in the right way and it will be a really worthwhile use of your time.

Scheduling Tools and Tips

Create a master  schedule that indicates on a term or year basis when holidays, exams, reports, essays etc. are due.  Post it in a prominent spot!

Create a weekly  schedule.

At a regular time, e.g. Sunday evening, plan your week  taking into account your master schedule and your study goals for that week

Mark out commitments  such as classes, labs, work, sport, meals, etc.

Give yourself a break – it’s also possible to overwork yourself. If you give yourself a start time of 9 o’clock each day, make sure you also have an end time. That way you’ll have something to work towards and a well-deserved break to look forward to at the end of the day. This is something you can also apply to your year as a whole – don’t be afraid to give yourself a week off every now and then!