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Organising your week

There is no set way to organise your time, but having a regular weekly timetable is useful. Those students who don’t have trouble keeping up with their work are usually using some form of timetable.

Preparing a weekly timetable

Start by drawing up a timetable (download a sample weekly planner) for the week, including all waking hours for all of the seven days. Write in all of your lectures, tutorials and other compulsory contact hours. Include any paid working hours and your travel time, if that’s significant. Also write in any other regular commitments, eg sport, music lesson.

Now look over your timetable and try to assign a designated block of study time for each subject or unit that you are studying. This ensures that you can give some time to every subject, every week. Use this time for revision of notes, readings, assignments or whatever else each subject requires. Assign other blocks of time, if necessary, for using the library or computer lab, doing group work, using a studio, doing fieldwork, etc.

How much study time do you need?

This is up to you, but here is something to consider. The credit point value of a unit can provide you with a guideline to the approximate number of hours per week you should be spending on that unit. (This includes contact and non-contact hours.) Most units at QUT are worth 12 credit points, so that would mean 12 hours per week per unit. Of course, your needs will vary throughout the semester – you may find it hard to spend so much time on a unit in the first couple of weeks, whereas you will probably need more when exams or assignments are due; some units include field trips or experience. Think of this figure as an average – a goal to aim for, rather than a strict rule.

As a rough guide, try to spend at least as much time on each unit outside of class as you spend in class. For example, if Unit X has a three-hour lecture and a one-hour tutorial, make sure you give yourself at least four hours study time per week for that unit.

Don’t forget recreation time

It is very important to keep some time available for doing fun things or just doing nothing. The amount of time depends on the size and number of your other commitments and how efficiently you work. Even if your schedule seems very full, try to find an hour in the week that you keep for yourself – perhaps to practise yoga or take a walk or call your family or stare at the wall. Treat this time with the same importance as your study time.

Making your routine work

For a timetable to work well, you need to follow it! Make a couple of copies and keep one with you at uni. Stick another one near your desk at home. This means that when you sit down to study, you won’t have to make difficult decisions like “What should I do now?”, because your timetable will tell you.

It is important to take regular breaks from study. Sitting for hours at a time will not help you to work well. Try to get up from your desk every hour or so and do something for five minutes – perhaps have a drink, stretch, walk around the garden, check the mailbox or listen to a song. (Watching TV is not advisable because it’s easy to get sucked in.) If it’s hard to make yourself take a break or to remember to come back to work after a break, try setting a timer.

Try to pace your activities according to your energy levels, stress, motivation, etc. If you arrive home feeling frazzled every afternoon, there is no point in planning a three-hour study session as soon as you walk in the door, because you’ll probably flop in a chair instead for the first hour. Focus on the difficult thinking-type tasks when your concentration is at its best, and keep the filing and stapling for those times when you’re less energetic.

It is also important to be flexible. Be aware that sometimes it may be very hard to stick rigidly to your timetable – a crisis may arise or your working hours may change. Perhaps you could swap a couple of days around or temporarily reduce your study hours. Provided that you mainly follow your timetable most of the time, you should find it easier to keep up with your work.

If your timetable seems not to be working out, consider possible reasons. Are you actually using your timetable? Are you being realistic in the number of study hours you have assigned? Are you spending all of your time on one subject instead of some time on each as you planned? Have your working or other commitments changed so much that you need to write a new timetable?

Planning the semester

As well as having a weekly routine, it is helpful to have a plan for the whole semester, which takes account of all assignments, presentations, exams and other assessments. Draw up a plan that shows all of your subjects and all of the weeks in the semester. Write in when each of your assessment pieces is due. Next, for each piece of assessment, break it down into smaller tasks or goals and write these in your semester plan as well. This will help you to see where you should be up to with your assignments, etc each week.

Download and print out a sample semester planner. It is useful to write in the corresponding dates for each week of the semester. (Remember to indicate the timing of the mid-semester break.)