Studying a course while employed full time can be challenging, though with good time management and finding the study tips that work for you, it’s possible to get your Diploma without sacrificing your job. It’s time to take control of your time!
1. Ask Your Workplace for Support while studying
Before you start making big study plans, ask what your employer can do to make things easier on your schedule. There may be the possibility for flexible work arrangements to allow you more study time, paid study leave, or paid training, or you may even be able to rearrange your day for a late start/early finish around exam weeks.
2. Utilise a Wall Planner
An easy step is putting up a study calendar or wall planner in your home. The hard part is looking at it every day! Add any important days/deadlines to the planner. Anything that’s worth your time should go up there. Use every millimetre of space to plan exactly how much time you’ll need to get assessments and study done, any personal commitments, social activities, clubs/hobbies, birthdays, bin nights, and maybe the occasional free day to look forward to, even if you just need to catch up in the extra time.
If you need something to pop up in front of you, add reminders to your phone or computer. If they don’t work for you, find another solution.
3. Automate the boring bits
Consider external options to keep your life running around you, you could try a meal service for a few weeks to cut down cooking time and to keep your diet balanced. If you have young children, see if another parent or your partner can take them too and from daycare/school. Identify which bills can be paid automatically and while subscriptions can roll over.
Once you start looking at things you need to do manually vs. what you can set up to happen automatically, there’s lots of opportunities!
4. Only do what's urgent
You might need to be a little more ruthless in figuring out what’s necessary during your study and what’s optional. What do you absolutely need to get done before anything else? A great way to re-train your brain is to turn your To-Do list into a Priority List. For each task you need to get done today, decide how important and urgent it is. Start by doing the most pressing things on your priority list, then once they’re done, move to the less-urgent tasks, and so on.
If something is urgent but not important to you, see if you can delegate it to someone else or push it back. If something is both not urgent and not important, it likely doesn’t need to be done, try to actively ignore it.
5. Remember your study goals!
Beyond just being committed to good time management, remind yourself what the effort is for. You’ll find success in anything you do if you really believe in it, so does your end goal align with your efforts today?
Defining personal success should take time, and should be unique to you – Avoid falling for someone else’s definition of success, because they will have their own goals to achieve. You cannot live through the worldview of your parents or friends or neighbours, because when you find success following their rules, it likely won’t fulfil you.