Get a day planner or calendar. Start with a detailed calendar. I prefer the ones that show a week at a time. Even if you are the most organized person - you will need this to help organize all the things in your life.
Pull out all course syllabi, family schedules and such. Start writing down all planned activities for this semester. Include all deadlines, tests, school plays, parties.... you get the point. At this point JUST write down deadlines, work schedules, etc. Don't forget to incorporate a few hours nightly for all the reading you will need to do.
Now look at the assignments, and tests you have written down. If you are like any other graduate student, you won't realize a when a paper or test is due until that week starts and you see it on the calendar. You know yourself better than anyone else. So you know how long it might take you to write a paper, study for a test, or complete a project. Start adding pre-deadlines on your calendar. For example, two weeks before a paper is due put "write paper" on the calendar. Then one week later add " proof read first draft." This way you aren't pulling an all-nighter the day before a deadline or test.
The final step - look at your calendar overall. It seems incredibly busy and you probably have almost EVERY hour scheduled. So go ahead and add fun stuff. Put in "Dinner out" or "Play dress up with kids." That might seems absurd right now because you can't imagine you will forget to do these things, but I promise you need to put on the calendar. If you can't seem to put some family time or fun time in, move some things around (like when you do your reading, and such). Just remember the fun stuff is just as important or you will wake up one day and realize while you've finished school, your kids have grown up some and you've missed a lot of LIFE.
Be the First to Comment on this Article