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In these first newsletters of the year, we are discussing the basic building blocks for finding order in your life, for the rest of your life. This is worth thinking through – it will make your life much easier and less stressful, so that you don’t end up like the poor guy in our picture.
Last week we talked about making a schedule, so that you block out time for study, sport, clubs, friends, etcetera. That’s an essential tool as you start the year. But within those blocks, what do you do first? Where do you start? What needs to be done today, what can wait until tomorrow? Let’s give you some pointers.
First make a list of everything you need to do. Actually, make two lists: one for your studies and one for personal stuff. Don’t worry about putting the items on the list in any order, just write them all down. Once you have a list, you can start sifting and ordering, using a very handy tool from a book Stephen Covey wrote in 1989, called The seven habits of highly effective people. He developed what he called a “time management matrix”. Click here for a great video that explains it (as an aside – can you hear that this is an AI voice? Interesting what machines can do!)
The basic idea is to make a difference between things that are important and things that are urgent. Look at how he arranged it:
To turn the idea into practice for yourself, divide a piece of paper into four quarters or quadrants. Write at the top left “Urgent”, and top right “Not Urgent”. Down the side you write “Important” and “Not Important”. Now you have four quadrants: Urgent and Important in the top left (quadrant A), Not Urgent and Important in the top right (quadrant B), Not Important and Urgent in the bottom left (quadrant C) and Not Urgent and Not Important in the bottom right (quadrant D).
Look at your list of things to do. Consider each one: is it important? Is it urgent? Which quadrant does it belong in? Find a place for everything on your list. Now ask yourself: where do you spend most of your time?
If you’re mostly doing things in quadrant A (urgent AND important), you are in crisis mode, sure to burn out. If you’re constantly in quadrant C (urgent but NOT important), you’re just reacting to whatever life throws at you, with no plan or control. That’s not a good idea. Quadrant D (not urgent and not important) has fun stuff which should have a place in your life, but you have to limit it in the same way you limit how much sweets you eat. (This is the home of social media – keep a close watch on that.)
Your focus should be in quadrant B: things that are important, but not urgent. Things like planning, setting goals, regular study, building relationships, and exercise. You will have time for that if you make a schedule and stick to it. A schedule is a fantastic tool to combat stress – if you use your study hours today to study for a test next week, you won’t be stressed out the evening before!
So, finally, go back to your list of things to do. Put stuff that is urgent and important at the top of the list, then those items not urgent but important, and push everything else to the very bottom. You will see: the more time you give to things that are not urgent but important, the fewer emergencies you will have with things that are dreadfully important and must be done immediately.
Happy planning!
The GRAD team
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GRAD – your guide to university success is a partnership project of Ruda Landman, StudyTrust, Van Schaik Publishers and Capitec Bank.