Balancing your studies

This resource will help you to:

• Recognise the importance of planning, prioritising, and goal setting as study skills.
• Develop strategies for managing multiple commitments and maintaining your wellbeing.
• Connect with tools and support services to aid successful study.

Managing time and planning for assignments is crucial in managing not just your time, but your sleep, stress, ability to socialise and to create a healthy work, study, life balance. A healthy work/life/study balance should be the goal of all students as it directly impacts your academic, social and work success.

Did you know?

Managing time, planning and priortising tasks can sometimes take more time than doing the actual tasks so why do we do it? And how can we manage, plan and priortise better? Computer scientists have learned a lot of good strategies for managing time effectively. In this short TED-Ed Video (5:09 Minutes) Brian Christian shares how we can use some of these insights, through this different perspective on planning, to help realise where you are going wrong and to help you get the most out of your time.

Your journey as a student will not always go according to plan. While we think it will be a straight road from start to finish, the reality is there will be many unexpected obstacles in your path. The reason why we plan is so that we can consider the obstacles in our paths before they happen so when they do happen, we are prepared.

Compartmentalisation is a method of organisation that separates tasks based on type, purpose, or urgency, without considering the time factor. Compartmentalising helps us identify the tasks as a whole rather than looking at tasks individually which can be overwhelming. For example, refer to the visualised graphic below, which illustrates compartmentalisation in action:

Compartmentalisation

Imagine you have a variety of tasks, thoughts, or responsibilities, like water that needs to be stored. To make sense of everything, you place the water into different buckets based on type, purpose, or urgency. Each bucket represents a specific category, such as work, study, or social.

Prioritising

Now, imagine each bucket has a weight, representing the importance or urgency of the tasks inside. Some buckets are heavier because they contain tasks that are more critical or have tighter deadlines. Others are lighter, as they contain less pressing or more flexible tasks.

Compartmentalise & Prioritise - Reflect Activity

After understanding the difference between compartmentalisation and prioritisation, it is time to organise your tasks and responsibilities into their respective categories!

Try to identify at least 5 items and organise them into their buckets.

Once you have organised your tasks, assign a weight to each. This could be using a star rating system, percentages, numbers, or any method that works for you.

As a student, you will have many competing priorities in various areas of your life. In these moments, prioritisation is essential to ensure you focus on what matters most and manage your time effectively. Understanding how to prioritise is also crucial to your academic success.

The following video (1:58 min) helps explain how to prioritise various aspects of your life. As you watch identify three aspects of your life that are 'large rocks', two aspects that are 'pebbles', and two aspects that are 'sand'.

Once you have identified your key priorities and figured out how to best manage your time, setting goals can help you achieve your objectives. 

Goal setting involves articulating what you want to achieve and when you want to achieve it. It is important to set short-, medium-, and long-term goals to maintain a clear direction. By setting short-term goals for your study sessions, you can improve your focus and productivity, making it easier to stay on track.

The most efficient goals are SMART goals! Setting SMART goals can provide a clear and structured path to enhance your progress in these areas.

What is a smart goal? 

A SMART goal is a clear and specific objective that is achievable within a set timeframe. It ensures that your goal is both realistic and measurable, allowing you to track your progress and stay motivated. By setting a SMART goal, you create a focused plan with a defined outcome, making it easier to stay on course and achieve success.

SMART goal setting is a framework to help you plan to achieve your goals, where goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

An example of a short-term SMART goal is to read and take notes for three journal articles related to your assignment today. The table below provides an example of how this goal meets each criterion.

Reward Yourself!

Do not forget to reward yourself for your efforts! For example, when you have finished your readings, take a break and do something you enjoy. 

Once you have clear goals, it is important to prioritise your time to achieve them.

Once you have clear goals, it is important to prioritise your time to achieve them.

Top tips for prioritising your time and planning for assignments

• Create calendars - daily, weekly, and for each study period. 
• Set aside 15 minutes each day to review your calendars and make a plan for the day.
• Set reminders.
• Establish daily and weekly routines that work for you. 
• Study at times when you feel energised and refreshed.
• Schedule time to have fun and recharge. 

1. Identify how you currently spend your time and how you prioritise activities using the 'prioritising your time-based commitments and goals' resource below.
2. Reflect on whether this is how your time is best spent, if you need to make adjustments, and whether you have enough hours in your week to achieve all of your tasks.
3. Use the 'study planner and timetable template' below to plan your next week, starting with the non-negotiable times, such as work shifts and scheduled classes.
4. Now schedule times of the day/week where you feel you study best, whether that is mornings, afternoons, evenings, or a mixture.
5. Next, open the UniSC 'assignment calculator' below and enter the details of your next assignment to see what steps to follow and the recommended due dates for each step.
6. From the assignment calculator, identify what you need to do this week.
7. Now develop short-term SMART goals for each study session to help keep you on track such as 'find three scholarly journal articles and record the important information from each'.
8. As you achieve each goal reward yourself with something you enjoy – a coffee, a walk in the sun, a cake, or other preferred reward. Acknowledging your achievements and staying mindful of your wellbeing is important because when you feel happy, supported, and relaxed, you are more productive and successful.
9. Now that you have planned your current week you could also look at the semester planners/academic calendar to start planning your semester.

Planning Resources

Stress is often thought of as 'all bad'; however, stress can be both good and bad (Lu et al., 2021) with 'good stress' versus 'no stress' or 'too much' stress optimal for academic success. Balancing your levels of stress will assist you with balancing your studies and other commitments.

• Too little stress can result in boredom, lack of motivation, and reduced performance.
• A reasonable level of stress known as eustress indicates that something is important to us resulting in motivation to achieve planned goals. 
• Too much stress known as distress can result in negative emotions and can lead to poor psychological and physical health outcomes.

One way to reduce stress to an optimal level is to adjust your stress mindset (Keech et al., 2018). To do this when you are experiencing stress consider the information above and remember that some stress can be purposeful, indicating that what you are doing matters. 

As a university student if you experienced no stress regarding learning and assessments your motivation to engage with them would be low; whereas, eustress or 'good stress' will help to motivate you and improve academic performance. However, remember to remain mindful of distress, if you are experiencing distress remember to prioritise your wellbeing, do something kind for yourself or reach out to the UniSC wellbeing team and/or book in with a student success advisor for assistance with balancing your studies (using the link provided under additional resources). 

Working in short bursts with regular, short breaks can help. Try using the Pomodoro® Technique to:

• Counteract overwhelm and get started.
• Enhance focus and concentration by reducing interruptions.
• Increase your awareness about decisions.
• Boost your motivation and keep it constant.
• Improve your work or study process.
• Strengthen your determination to apply yourself to your tasks.

The following video (5:47 min) provides a good overview of the Pomodoro technique.

The pomodoro technique - adjustments

You may find it helpful to tweak this technique, especially if you are neurodivergent. Try:

• Extending your active pomodoro session (up to 40 minutes per session).
  • Find your sweet spot!
  • The goal is to be in a flow state rather than hyperfocus.
• Extend your pomodoro breaks (up to 15 minutes per break).
• Reward yourself in your breaks.
  • This reinforces desirable behaviour, for instance chunking your time/tasks.
  • Rewards also address the dopamine deficiency in neurodivergence.
    • Dopamine facilitates action towards our goals!
  • In the final 5 minutes of your break, assess how the work you did in your active session is relevant to your goal. 
    • This prevents you from going too far down a rabbit hole!

In this video (10:11 min) find out how to overcome procrastination with the 70% rule.

The power of passion and perseverance | Angela Lee Duckworth

In this video (6:13 min) Dr Duckworth explains their theory of "grit" as a predictor of success.

The power of believing you can improve | Carol Dweck

In this video (10:24 min) Carol Dweck explains how a growth mindset can grow our brain's capacity to learn and to solve problems.