Backing the Pack » Blog Archive » Time Management

Time Management

January 29th, 2010

Hello All!

I hope each and every one of you is excited about beginning a new semester at Indiana University East. I know that I am! The first few weeks of classes can be overwhelming with getting used to a new class schedule, buying books, and meeting new instructors. This is true both for in person and online classes.

If you have read my updates in the past, you will know that having good time management and being self-disciplined are essential qualities of successful distance learners. The first weeks of class will be when you lay the foundation of these qualities for the rest of the semester. During the first week of class, you should have received the syllabus and schedule for the course. These may be the most important documents you will ever receive in an online course because they contain the due dates for all of your assignments and the dates for quizzes and tests. They will be your roadmap for the class. Since you will not be meeting weekly in a classroom, you not have someone constantly reminding you of these dates. The responsibility is yours!

In the online classes that I have taken in the past, a simple strategy has allowed me to manage the schedule of the class and also be proactive about due dates. I purchased an inexpensive weekly planner (one that you can lay open and see an entire week on the two pages that are open). When I got the schedule for the course that I was taking, I immediately wrote in all the assignments, and the quizzes and tests, in red ink on the dates that they were due. I then went through the planner and made a note one week prior to the due date about assignment or test. For example, if there was an exam scheduled for February 27, I noted that on February 20. This I wrote in blue ink and then highlighted to make sure it got my attention. I kept this planner, open to the current week, next to my computer for the duration of the class. In this way, every time that I got on my computer I had a visual reminder of the important dates for that week and also reminded of the assignments that were approaching for the following week.

You may choose to use my system of scheduling for the course, or come up with one of your own, but the important thing is to have a system in place for keeping yourself on schedule in the class. If you do this the first week of class, as soon as you have you syllabus and schedule, you will have laid a solid foundation for managing your course for the rest of the semester.

Tom