Instructions and matters to consider when evaluating your schedule

1. How do you think it went?

Take out your weekly plan from before and think about the following before continuing:

- How well did you plan materialise? What went as it should?

- What kinds of challenges or problems emerged as you were trying to follow your plan? When did your time actually go, if it was not spent as planned?

- Was the plan realistic and doable? If you deviated from your goals, did you do so consciously or inadvertently?

- What (if anything) did you learn from this exercise? How will you take into account what you learned the next time you are planning a schedule?

2. Did you notice any avoidance, dawdling or procrastination when you were supposed to be carrying out the planned schedule?

Behind avoidance there is often a fear that we will not be able to manage with something; the task before us seems too large or difficult. Often, however, the fear about negative consequences is actually worse than the reality. Identify what kinds of avoidance mechanisms you may use. Gaming? Interacting on social media? Rushing from one activity to the next? Social activities?

Situations where you typically dawdle

• When a task seems difficult

• When a task requires a lot of time

• When you think you may lack the skills or knowledge needed for a task

Reasons behind dawdling

• Perfectionism

• Lack of self-confidence, low expectations of success

• Insecurity or fear of criticism

Putting off starting something is not always the same as dawdling or procrastination. Some other matter may really be more important, for example, or one may just not feel up to doing all the things planned.

Breaking down the goals into sufficiently small bits is the best way to end dawdling and avoidance. Think about the smallest action you could take that would lead towards the goal, then make that your short-term goal and do it. This will get your energy to move in the right direction.

The best time to begin is NOW. One good tip for getting started is the pomodoro technique. Try it out by concentrating for half an hour: http://pomodorotechnique.com/ .

Remember to reward yourself after achieving even small goals. If is demotivating if the award is just barely visible on the far horizon behind a huge mountain of work. Why not award yourself at the end of, say, a week of success?

3. Cutting the branch you’re sitting on?

Pause for a moment and remember your experiences with studies. Have you often dropped out of a course because it seemed too difficult? Do you avoid situations where you think you might appear stupid or feel embarrassed? How do you react when you fail at something?

If you avoid study-related challenges or put off doing things until the last minute, then you are not giving yourself a chance to succeed. Learning new things is always connected to uncertainty and the risk of failure. Daring to rise to a challenge with the risk of sometimes experiencing unpleasant feelings gives us also the opportunity to experience successes and the joy of learning. Governing one’s emotions involves skills that can be learned.

Accepting challenges is easier if you:

• set reasonable goals for yourself A reasonable goal is one appropriate to your own basic knowledge and the time and other resources you have available.
• break down your goals into small, concrete tasks. This cannot be overstressed!
• study together with others
• get in touch with a student counsellor before avoidance becomes a vicious circle where experiences of failure make you feel like a mediocre student and make you withdraw from an increasing number of situations.

4. Why continue with schedule planning?

What kind of schedule planner were you before? If scheduling feels like a waste of time or of no benefit to you still, list the reasons why.

Pause here also to list the reasons why you might continue scheduling in the future, even if you don’t always feel like it. What benefits can schedule planning bring to your everyday life and studies?

As you have probably already figured out, scheduling must be done anew every week because it is not feasible to make a ‘universal’ weekly schedule covering the whole year (nor would such a schedule be of much use).