SCHEDULES

Planning and scheduling your time

Types of Schedules:

Schedules empower you and give you the ability to

take control of time.

With schedules, you create goals and plans for how

you wish to spend your time.

Types of Schedules:

1. Term Schedules

2. Weekly Schedules

3. Daily Schedules or “To Do” Lists

Term Schedules

A term schedule is a month-by-month calendar that

shows important events and deadlines for the entire

semester.

You can use:

A regular monthly calendar

A monthly planner

An electronic organizer

A computer calendar program

Items to Include on Your Term Schedule:

1. Important deadlines for special projects, reports, and writing or lab assignments that appear on your course syllabi

2. Scheduled tests, midterms, and final exams

3. Special events, meetings, workshops, or conferences

4. Holidays

5. Scheduled times for tutors, study groups, or other support services

6. Personal appointments on or off campus

7. Important social engagements on or off campus

How to create a term schedule:

First gather together your campus calendar, the syllabus from each of your courses, and your personal calendar of events.

Use a month-at-a-glance planner, a computer program, or monthly calendars available online. On the calendar, write the dates for the all the items shown on the previous slide

Place your term schedule in front of your notebook or somewhere that it will be seen and easy to reference when creating your weekly schedule

Update your term schedule throughout the semester with deadlines for new assignments and events or with changes to the syllabus.

Weekly Schedules

A weekly schedule is a detailed plan that serves a

guide for creating a manageable, daily routine for

each day of the week.

Using a weekly schedule helps you maintain a focus

and helps you organize, monitor, and regulate your

use of time.

Weekly schedules are made before you engage in

the activities and becomes your plan, your guide,

your structure for the week ahead.

Seven Essential Elements of a Well-

Planned Weekly Schedule:

It reflects a realistic balance between school, work, and leisure. It shows specific time blocks for work and leisure activities not just school.

It shows adequate time for study blocks.

It makes good use of all blocks of time.

It includes hours of employment and reflects any changes in your work hours each week.

It shows consistent patterns.

It allocates time to work on personal goals.

It establishes a routine time to go to sleep each night.

Five steps for creating a weekly schedule

1. Write your fixed activities first. These are the

activities that do not vary from week to week.

These include class times, work schedule, eating

(breakfast, lunch, and dinner), special

appointments, getting ready in the morning and

commuting, and sleep

Five steps for creating a weekly schedule

2. Write your fixed study times. It is important to

make study blocks a high priority on your weekly

schedule. Fixed study blocks are well-planned

blocks of times set aside to study specific subjects

during the course of the week

Five steps for creating a weekly schedule

3. Add several flexible study blocks. Flex study

blocks are flexible blocks of time on a weekly

schedule that you use only when you need them.

They are safety nets for extra study time on weeks

when you may have additional coursework. If you

don’t need the flex time on your schedule, convert

them to free time.

Study Leisure

OR

Five steps for creating a weekly schedule

4. Add time for personal goals and responsibilities.

Schedule time blocks to work specifically on

important goals or personal responsibilities. If you

don’t set up time for these goals or responsibilities,

you may find yourself procrastinating or

postponing them.

Five steps for creating a weekly schedule

5. Schedule leisure, family, and social time. Label the

remaining time on your schedule as family, social,

or leisure. Or you can label specific time blocks,

such as “movie”, “party”, “family dinner”, “game”,

etc. Having leisure, family, and social time is

important for mental and physical health and

strong relationships.

Daily Schedules

A daily schedule is a specific list of tasks that you plan to complete over the course of a day.

It is your “to-do” list that helps you move through the day efficiently

You can use an index card, a small notebook, a daily planner, or an electronic organizer for your daily schedule.

Take five to ten minutes in the evening or first thing in the morning, to plan and prioritize what you need to do that day.

Keep your to do list in a convenient location and keep it handy throughout the day.

Sources:

Szarlan, John, Suman Singha, and Scott Brown.

Striving for Excellence: A Manual for Goal

Achievement. Boston: Pearson, 2011. Print.

Wong, Linda. Essential Study Skills. 6th ed. New

York: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. Print.