Stepping Up: How to actually manage your time

As a student at King’s, I’m no stranger to ‘time management’. The endless interviews, applications, and network sessions all seem to drone on about the importance of managing time well. But it wasn’t until my second year that it really clicked. My first year, I’d felt like I was all over the place. Looking back I couldn’t even tell you what I was doing - just that I was constantly busy. 

That was fine back then when grades didn’t matter, when there was very little pressure to get work experience. It wasn’t until my first week of second year, when being a ‘yes’ person I thought oops, I may have taken on too much that I realised I needed to form some way of organising my time to allow me to do the 101 things I really needed and wanted to do whilst at uni. 

As someone with 4 part-time jobs, uni and a huge social life, I get asked about ten times a week ‘how are you so busy?’. So, as your business-minded big sister, this article takes you through what worked for me, and many other professionals, as a manageable yet easy way to manage your time, not just at uni but afterwards too. 

Taking inspiration from Atomic Habits (a really great read!), it became really clear that the way I had naturally adapted my time management was a process that became a habit. As someone who would normally consider myself quite spontaneous, the word ‘planning’ felt foreign and scary yet I hadn’t realised that’s what I’d been doing all along. For simplicity's sake, I’ll guide you through this in a weekly schedule from Monday to Sunday but please note that in reality, neither I nor most people at uni, have no concept of a usual working week, so vary your schedules accordingly. 

The first thing I do is write down everything I need to get done, no matter how small of a task or how long away it needs to be done for. I use the app Minimalist which syncs on both my mac and phone to track tasks. There are loads of apps you can use, but I personally prefer this one as it’s basic and easy to use. Alternatively, keeping a hand-written diary could also be great if you prefer - though if you forget it when you need it, it’s not as ideal. 

1. When I say write everything down, I mean everything. If it’s washing your bedsheets, doing your weekly shop, meeting a friend for dinner, a tutorial reading, submitting a cover letter. Just write everything down. This also works so much better when you break things into smaller tasks: writing ‘study for module 4qqmn567’ isn’t as doable as ‘read tutorial 2’s core chapter for 4qqmn567’.

2. Order things on priority. If you have an upcoming deadline that week, that goes first. Longer-term tasks like revising for an exam in a few months, goes to the bottom of your list. This is why I like the Minimalist app as it makes it far easier to order tasks and continuously add them throughout the day when they come up.

3. Order things on priority. If you have an upcoming deadline that week, that goes first. Longer-term tasks like revising for an exam in a few months, goes to the bottom of your list. This is why I like the Minimalist app as it makes it far easier to order tasks and continuously add them throughout the day when they come up.

If you know you have to work shifts that week, get them blocked in first too! I personally go a bit overboard here and schedule in travel time into my calendar as there is nothing more I hate than being late. This way I can avoid being flushed when I turn up to where I need to be. 

4. Inevitably, things change. Things come up that you don’t expect to, so once you get into the habit of writing this continuous to do list and using the calendar to block it in, things become a lot easier. Sometimes though, weeks are just too busy, especially if you’ve already scheduled in time for everything and your calendar is so packed all you can see is coloured widgets and no gaps. In this case, if possible, I try to merge tasks into the same time slot. Now, I’m not saying this is the best method but it is productive. I figure getting something done to half-effort is far better than not getting it done at all and getting frustrated that tasks are building up.

Now, you may be thinking, yes, but how?. I can only speak from my own experience but here are some of the things that I do to kill two birds with one stone. 

Need to study but also want to catch up with a friend? Pret study date.

Need to get ready for a night out but you have to catch up on a lecture you missed? Do your makeup whilst watching lecture capture.

Need to write a cover letter but also have a lecture to attend? Get it done in the break of the lecture or multi-task and write it at the same time (Thanks, ChatGPT). 

Need to get to campus but behind on your reading? Save yourself the struggle of trying to avoid awkward eye contact on the tube and pre-download your readings before travelling. When I don’t have the brain capacity on the way to 9ams, I usually stick a semi-related podcast on so I can subconsciously absorb the information. 

This is just a start but there are so many other ways you can maximise your use of time. If, like me, you have so many different things you want to do and a 24 hour day does not seem quite long enough, try following some of these tips.