Too much to do? Time management tips that will help

Straightforward time management strategies for fitting training around work, family and everyday responsibilities.

No-one needs another person telling them to "manage their time better".

When work, training, family, appointments and other responsibilities are all competing for the same hours, the problem is rarely that you're doing nothing. Sometimes there is just a lot to get through.

Effective time management starts with getting those demands out of your head and to decide what takes priority. What has a fixed time? What can move? What needs to happen soon and what can wait?

Once you can see the workload more clearly, it becomes easier to work out what your next step is.

Put everything in one place

Trying to remember every deadline, shift and commitment uses mental energy before you even start the work.

Choose a place to keep track of your week. This might be your phone calendar, a paper diary or weekly planner, or maybe a wall calendar for the whole family to look at. The most important thing is that it's presented in a way that suits you.

Include things such as:

• Work shifts
• Training sessions
• Assessment due dates
• Appointments
• Family responsibilities
• Travel time
• Personal committments

Then look ahead.

If you can see that you have a busy work week and assessment due soon too, you can start earlier and give yourself space rather than discovering the clash when both are already demanding your attention.

Break down bigger tasks into smaller ones

"Finish course work" is not a useful list item or instruction. Neither is "do assignment".

Large tasks are easier to avoid because it's difficult to know where to start. It's much more effective to make the action item specific. Instead of planning to work on an assignment, choose one next step:

• Read the instructions
• Answer the first question
• Review your trainer's feedback
• Find and research the information you need
• Draft one section
• Check what still needs to be completed

Once you begin, you may choose to continue. If you don't make that choice, you'll have still moved the task forward and made progress.

This process of breaking tasks down into smaller chunks also makes it easier when your available time is short. This way you don't need a whole afternoon free to make your study time productive.

Don't try to do it all at once

Now that we've broken everything down into smaller steps, we need to learn how to prioritise our list.

When all our tasks feel urgent and important, we need to decide which one has the greatest consequence if it's delayed.

Ask yourself:

• What is due first?
• Is there anything stopping me from progressing?
• Do I need to ask my trainer a question before I can continue?
• Which task would reduce the most pressure if I completed it today?
• What can genuinely wait?

An assessment due tomorrow probably matters more than reorganising your study folder and sometimes the best next action is not more study but rather contacting your trainer and asking for clarification to prevent losing more time on guessing.

Prioritising means accepting that not every task can or should go first.

Remember, multitasking isn't actually possible and makes our brains work harder than they need to when we switch between tasks.

Make distraction harder

Phones, messages and notifications are good at taking five minutes and turning them into twenty (or more).

You don't need to create a distraction-free bunker every time you study, but a few small changes can help:

• Put your phone somewhere you cannot automatically reach for it
• Close browser tabs you are not using
• Turn off avoidable notifications
• Decide what you want to complete before checking messages again
• Set a short, realistic period for focused work.

Twenty useful minutes is better than two hours spent repeatedly starting again. Use a timer and give yourself a break when it reaches the end. You might choose to spend another twenty minutes studying after your break if you have the time available.

Understand why you are putting something off

Procrastination is common, and it is not always a sign that you do not care about your course.

Sometimes there is a practical reason it feels hard to begin.

If you are:

• Confused, ask your trainer for clarification
• Unsure where to begin, break the task into one small next action
• Worried about getting it wrong, start with a rough draft rather than waiting for a perfect answer
• Exhausted, consider whether another study window will be more useful
• Overwhelmed by the size of the workload, decide what genuinely needs attention first.

Instead of only telling yourself to “get on with it”, work out what is making it difficult to start.

Build in space for the unexpected

A schedule that only works when nothing goes wrong is not much of a schedule.

Work runs late. Family responsibilities change. You get sick. Something takes longer than expected. Where possible, begin assessments before the last available day and leave some unallocated space during the week. This gives you somewhere to move things when life changes.

It is also worth planning time when you are not studying or working. Rest is part of managing your time, particularly if you are trying to maintain study over weeks or months rather than pushing through one deadline.

Ask for support before you get completely stuck

A planner can help organise your workload but it cannot solve every challenge.

If you are having difficulty keeping up with your training, motivation has dropped or circumstances outside study are affecting your ability to progress, speak with your ARC Training trainer.

ARC Training also provides access to student support and wellbeing information through the Student Handbook and student support resources below.

Don’t wait until a missed deadline becomes several missed deadlines before starting that conversation.

Further reading

Healthdirect – Work-related stress.

University of Melbourne - Time management