Concept - Skills & Strategies: Managing Time & Organization

Managing Your Time & Organization

Online learning requires a student to have strong organizational and time management skills as much of the work will be self-directed.  Without weekly scheduled classes to keep you structured and organized, how will you keep organized and manage your time? 

Be a Planner

Many students, whether they are taking online courses or not, find it helpful to create  a Term Planner  that provides a big picture look at your term and what is expected.  The next step is to develop a Weekly Planner schedule to plan out how you are going to break up the hours you have in a day.  The next step moves onto daily tasks and to-do's. This is when Daily To-Do Lists come in handy.  Click the links below to take you to Fleming's own worksheets. 

Term Planner:

One thing that our Learning Strategy team suggests to every student is taking some time before things get too busy to make a Master Plan for your semester. Creating a term-at-a-glance planner will help you to keep track of upcoming tests, assignments, group projects, etc. all on ONE page. Check out the Term Planner Word document to get started

Weekly Planner: 

There are many things to consider when deciding how to use your time. As a student, you will likely have many commitments in and outside of school. It is then important to break down these tasks into chunks of time throughout your weeks in order to meet your deadlines and to be prepared for tests/exams.

To-Do Lists:  

Break down your Weekly plan into daily tasks by creating To-Do lists either by day or by course.

Chunk out your Assignments

It is so important that your planning goes beyond managing your time.  Being able to take an assignment and break it down into small and manageable chunks, will help you to feel less overwhelmed and ready to tackle the assignment effectively. 

You will be given many assignments over the course of a term. It is often difficult for students to determine how much time to set aside in your planning to complete them.

Instead of simply guessing and hoping for the best, why not try breaking down your assignments in a systematic way to obtain a clear idea of how long it may take you.