Time Management

Audio Transcript Auto-generated

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  Hi, my name is jennifer LaMarca and I am an academic coach at the learning center.

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  This short video is going to go through a few

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  different perspectives of time to allow you to think about

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  how you can manage your time from these different angles

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  so that you can achieve success in your courses.

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  We're going to talk through using a monthly calendar,

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  then creating weekly schedules and finally how to make to do

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  lists so that your daily routine feeds into that weekly routine,

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  which will ultimately have you reaching

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  your academic goals throughout the semester.

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  First, we want to talk about understanding the big picture,

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  having an idea of when your exams papers,

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  projects are due and how that bumps up against your personal life.

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  Can really help you get a grip on

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  everything you're expected to accomplish throughout the semester.

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  So we want to use a calendar that has a monthly view,

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  I'm just opening up my calendar so I can show you,

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  we want to see that month at a glance. This is for february. What are all those dates?

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  Right. What do we have coming up?

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  And how does that look from an academic perspective,

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  but also from a personal perspective.

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  In order to build this effectively, we want to be really,

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  really aware of what's going on.

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  And the first place to look is our academic

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  calendar to see when are important campus states are

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  these campus states are for spring 2022.

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  This video you may be watching and you may not be in that semester.

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  So if you're curious about the semester that you're in,

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  you can google academic calendar at CSU L.

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  B.

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  And you'll be taken to a page that has a list of academic years you click

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  in and that will give you all of your important academic dates for that semester.

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  So when we're looking at this, we want to know when does school start?

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  When does it end when our finals,

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  Are there any breaks or holidays where the campus is closed?

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  This just helps lay the groundwork for, where are we supposed to be,

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  where we expected to be?

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  And when are we taking our finals?

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  We want to plug that into our monthly calendar right away

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  next

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  by the end of the first week,

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  hopefully you've been to class and you've been able to get your syllabi.

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  What we want to do with that is not just

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  leave those syllabi in their folders or in our physical

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  world folders. If we print them out,

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  we want to go through them and we want to pull out any big point items.

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  So exams papers, projects, presentations, those really,

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  really big point items that build our grade,

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  we want to pull those out and situate them within our calendar.

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  You know when our our midterm is going to be when our papers do,

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  and ultimately when our our finals,

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  we want to be aware of that from the very beginning

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  so that we know how life is going to look,

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  Is it going to be really busy at certain times?

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  Most likely yes. Is it gonna be lighter at times? Yes.

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  This awareness allows us to think about how we're going

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  to spread or break up our study throughout the weeks

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  to really get the time and attention we need in order to meet our big picture goals

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  and finally we're people too right.

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  We have personal lives and we want to know how those personal lives

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  are going to work or not work maybe with our academic life.

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  So thinking about, you know spring, do we have holidays? Do we have um

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  birthday celebrations, weddings? Who knows? Right, what's coming up in spring

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  and plop those into your monthly calendar as well?

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  I know that one thing that gets a lot of people, if you celebrate Mother's day,

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  usually that's right before finals.

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  So being aware that that sunday before finals,

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  you might be with your family and not able to study uh knowing that is fine,

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  it's fine to do that and we encourage you to

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  do that because that's what allows you to stay balanced.

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  But we can only manage that effectively from an academic perspective,

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  if we know ahead of time and then we can spread our study out around those events.

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  So getting all of those important days in your calendar is really,

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  really critical to achieving balance and maintaining academic success.

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  Now we're going to talk through creating a weekly schedule and this is really

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  centered on making sure that you have a routine that honors your academic life,

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  right?

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  We don't want to just study right before an

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  exam that is using mainly our short term memory.

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  And it's not allowing us to learn deep enough to perform well consistently.

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  What we want to do is see this content on a regular

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  basis so that we're building long term memories really solid understanding.

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  So our performance on exams is great, right?

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  We're able to get those AIDS that we want.

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  So creating a weekly routine requires us to know when and where we are throughout

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  the week what our obligations are and then

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  structuring our study time around those obligations.

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  So we want to think about

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  when are your classes? Right.

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  That's one thing that's solid that we know every week,

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  certain days and times were in class.

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  We want to put that on our weekly schedule.

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  Um also because this semester and some of our

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  future semesters might be a little in person,

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  a little virtual.

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  We want to know that to write for us this semester.

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  We're virtual until the 7th of February. We want to be aware of that.

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  And then once we're in person, we want to know, where are we going?

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  Where are classes at?

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  Similarly?

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  We want to go through a personal life with this as well and create that schedule.

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  So do we use the gym on a regular basis?

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  We should definitely do that if that's something that feeds us.

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  So we want to carve out that time throughout the day to get to the gym.

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  If you have other things that you need to take care of family obligations, pets,

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  to take care of

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  personal items that you need to fit into your day,

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  make sure that you put that into your weekly schedule.

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  We essentially want to build out a routine with all of our obligations first

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  and then we want to look at with the time we have left over.

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  When can we put study time?

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  We want to shoot for studying a couple of different sessions a week per class

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  and working within two hour increments seems to work really well for most students.

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  So if we could say, you know, alright for history, I need to study,

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  I want to study four hours a week.

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  I'm going to study Mondays and Wednesdays from 2 to 4

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  and putting that on our weekly routine and then trying to live that as best we can.

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  That's gonna allow us to start to get into a groove of learning

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  and processing information effectively so we can perform really well on exams.

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  Okay. Um yeah,

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  and then finally this last little guy, right making to do list.

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  This is really,

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  really important too because our weekly routine won't

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  work if we don't plan our days,

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  we need to plan on a daily basis what we are up against

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  what we need to take care of tomorrow to make it work.

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  So I always recommend to students, you know the end of your day,

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  sit down for a second,

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  look at what you have coming up tomorrow on your weekly schedule.

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  Maybe take a glance at that monthly calendar.

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  Say okay I have a test coming up in a week.

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  I'm gonna study Mondays and Wednesdays. Today is

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  Tuesday. So tomorrow is a study session.

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  What do I need to take care of in regards to this class? Right?

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  And writing it down a little to do items. Maybe I need to review my notes.

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  Maybe I need to complete an assignment.

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  Maybe I need to do some reading or watching some videos.

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  We want to put that on our to do list so that tomorrow when we sit

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  down to study we're not wondering where to start and we're not kind of lost.

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  We know exactly where to begin and what we need to take care of.

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  So planning our days out like this can

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  really really help us with focus with motivation.

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  But also if we happen to have some extra time pop up in the middle of the day,

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  maybe a class is canceled or a meeting gets canceled.

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  We can pull out our to do list and we can be

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  effective time managers by saying what can I cross off this list.

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  So similarly to planning our academic life, we want to plan our personal life too.

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  So if we have to mail a rent check or if we have to pick something up from the store,

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  we have to make a phone call.

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  We want to write those on our to do list as well.

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  So that in one place we see all the things we need to accomplish throughout the day.

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  I use a cute little, I like aesthetics. So I um

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  you know, make an effort to find cute pads of paper but you'll see,

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  I build this out to do lists and then these are just notes throughout the day.

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  There is a time

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  if you can see listed by time there so that I can really say, okay,

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  this is definitely happening at this time.

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  I have these things to take care of. When can I fit that in in my day. Right,

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  So that's our quick and dirty time management.

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  Hopefully you're able to use some of these tips.

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  These are great strategies and not too time consuming in and of themselves.

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  So making sure that you have that monthly calendar taken

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  care of ideally after that first week of the semester.

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  Then looking at creating those weekly schedules,

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  what does your routine look like And then finally making this to do list.

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  Can help you stay on top of course work can help you pivot if you

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  need to and can help you manage things that are coming up in the semester.

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  If you want to meet with one of our peer coaches to carve out one of these

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  are coaches can help you build out that monthly

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  calendar that weekly or that daily to do.

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  You can schedule with our coaches through beach,

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  connect and they're available and ready to

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  help you really personalize your time management

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  approach and make sure that you're being as effective as you possibly can.

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  Thank you. Good luck.