What could you do better this semester?
Published on 30 January 15
It’s the start of a new semester and the perfect opportunity to start a clean slate. So have a think about what you could have done better last term and make some adjustments. Here are a few areas to think about:
Managing your time better
Great organisation and effective time management are best friends, as you can’t really have one without the other. Have a think about what eats up your time, whether it’s going food shopping every day, spending too much time on social media or even devoting too much time to extra-curricular activities.
An easy way to do this is to keep a diary of what you do each day for a week. Once you’ve identified these time-wasters, try your best to keep limits on them. For example, planning a weekly food shop, or setting yourself a maximum amount of times you’ll check Facebook or Twitter in a day.
Meeting deadlines
Whether it was leaving it until the night before or being forced to become a bit of a hermit for a week due to deadlines creeping up on you, you can prevent having to do this if you plan ahead. Find out the assessment deadlines for all of your units – these are usually available on Blackboard, but if not ask your course unit leader – and plot them on a calendar. Then work backwards from the deadline, figuring out when you need to start, estimating how long the piece of work will take you.
It’s worth keeping the mentality that it is never too early to start a piece of work. Even if it is on a topic you haven’t yet covered in lectures, you could start the recommended reading or research and get a rough plan down. Remember, your lecturer will always be happy to talk about work with you in their office hours, so make full use of these.
Making your money last
If you fizzled your student loan away by November last semester, prevent a repeat by budgeting. Have look through your bank statements from last term and figure out where your money is being spent. Using this information set a budget and stick to it. Whether it’s daily, weekly or monthly, ensure it’s realistic; otherwise you will always exceed it!
Withdrawing cash at the beginning of the week works well for a lot of people, as it’s often easy to lost track of your spending when using your card. Try to only carry with you what you need however, to avoid carrying large amounts of cash around.
If you are finding you are struggling financially, despite budgeting, have a look at these money saving tips or get in touch with the Student Money Advisor.
Staying up to date with work
A sure-fire way to becoming disorganised is to get behind on work and lectures. It’s not the end of the world if you have to miss a lecture or seminar, but make sure you budget some time to go through the notes to ensure you don’t fall behind, and don’t be afraid to contact your course unit leader for help if you need it.
If you struggle to devote enough time to your uni work, a good tip is treating uni as your ‘9-5 job’. This is where you spend a set number of hours working in uni a day, regardless of your timetable and you ‘leave your work at work’ – meaning you don’t allow work to exceed the time you give to it and do ‘overtime’. Then, when you’ve reached the end of your working day, you can spend your evening doing whatever you like guilt-free, just like the majority of the working world!