How to Schedule Your Day with Timetables
I have shared some tips to help you make an effective timetable which is easy to follow.
Hey everyone! how has this week been for you all? It has gotten really cold and has snowed a bit on my side too. I hope you all are coping well in this cold and dark weather. Just a few more months and hopefully we’ll get to see some spring colours.
This week’s newsletter is about how to make a timetable and follow it. I have been making a timetable since July last year. I started by making a daily timetable in my journal and then slowly switched to Google Calendar once I got used to following a routine. Google Calendar makes it easy to access my timetable on the phone as most of the time I don’t have access to my journal, it’s free and fun as you can colour code your activities/tasks.
I make my timetable weekly and hopefully, the tips I share will help you get started with organising your time and making the most of your day without stressing/burning yourself out.
Sleep-Wake time: I add the time I need to get into bed and the time I need to wake up in the timetable first. For you to follow your timetable efficiently and create an effective routine, you need to sleep on time and wake up early. Having a productive start to your day, when there are no distractions, will set your mind to achieving most of the day’s tasks. Also, sufficient sleep is required for good health and improving brain performance. Moreover, it creates a time range in which I need to complete my tasks for the day.
Add important/urgent tasks: When I first started, I would add a lot of tasks to my timetable to complete in a day. It included: all the skills that I wanted to learn, activities that I wanted to do, socialising, etc. Overloading the timetable makes it difficult to follow and you will likely end up procrastinating over the tasks that require urgent attention.
So, list down all the tasks/goals that you would like to complete/achieve and categorise them using The Eisenhower Matrix. This tool allows you to prioritise your tasks by dividing them into the following 4 quadrants:
Quadrant I is for urgent and important tasks that require immediate attention and are important for achieving your long-term goals. E.g. deadlines, important projects etc.
Quadrant II is for important but non-urgent tasks. These are tasks that don’t require immediate attention but are crucial for achieving your long-term goals. E.g. developing some useful skills required for achieving your goal.
Quadrant III is for urgent but not-important tasks. These require immediate attention but don’t contribute towards achieving your long-term goals. E.g. work meetings, responding to emails etc.
Quadrant IV is for tasks which are neither important nor urgent. These are distractions and will waste your time.
Once you have divided your tasks according to the above, the focus should be on the tasks in the 1st and 2nd quadrants. As a student, I add my lectures and important meetings, for the week, in the timetable first. It allows me to use my remaining time to study, socialise or do some fun activity to wind down.
Urgent/Important tasks: Now that you have decided to wake up early in the day, use this time to complete the tasks in quadrants I and II, or to put it simply the tasks that you are most likely to procrastinate on, resulting in you stressing over it by the end of the day. I wake up between 5 am - 6 am and after some exercise, I either go over some pre-work to prepare for the day’s lectures or work on my project as it’s my urgent and important task at the moment. Completing an important task in the morning makes me feel accomplished, reduces stress, and sets me in work mode for the rest of the day.
Tasks per day: Limit yourself to 2/3 of important tasks per day. These can be your work deadlines, some lecture notes to complete, or an important meeting/event to organise/attend etc. Give yourself enough time to complete these tasks, depending on how fast you work. For instance, certain lectures take about 4 hours for me to go over thoroughly and some require less time. So, I allocate time according to how much attention the task needs and then try to complete it in that time frame. If I am unable to complete it, then either I complete it the next day or over the weekend depending on how urgent it is. If a task finishes earlier than the scheduled time, then I try to complete the remaining tasks for the day or just relax if it’s the last task of the day.
Fun/social time: During semester 1, despite making a timetable, I ended up studying all day and it was difficult for me to overcome the urge to study during the time I had set aside for extra-curricular activities. So I felt tired and burned out as it got closer to the exams. Therefore, it’s important to balance your time between job/education and doing fun activities, socialising with family and friends or learning a skill. I have been studying till 7/8 pm these days and use the remaining time to read a book, watch a TV show, journal, pray and sleep by 10 pm. It works as a reward and gives me motivation after I have accomplished the day’s tasks and makes it easier to follow the timetable. If I have had a long and tiring day, I tend not to do any mentally challenging work after I get home and just try to relax and prepare myself for the next day.
The Day: Pick a day in the week to do house chores such as, washing, cooking, cleaning, etc. For me it’s Sundays. I make my weekly timetable on this day, prepare my meals for the week, write my newsletter, clean my room, do laundry, do grocery shopping, iron my clothes for the next day etc. These tasks are important but not urgent. I make a To-Do list of such tasks and do them on Sunday so I can focus on more urgent tasks during the week.
Give it time: It took me a long time to adjust to the timetable routine and it kept changing according to my circumstances, availability of free time etc. I’m still not 100% on following my timetable, but it’s getting better. So don’t beat yourself up too much if you are not consistent with it initially. Give yourself time to adjust, change it according to your lifestyle and adapt to those changes. Timetabling is not meant to be strict, instead should serve the purpose of helping you have a productive start, so you don’t end up procrastinating over your phone, thinking ‘What should you do first when you wake up in the morning’. It helps you to focus on your main tasks, create a work-life balance and be more organised with your time. Time is money so spend wisely. It’s a reminder for both you and me.
This is what I have learnt from when I started making my timetables. I used to make them every week despite the countless times I have failed to follow them. But now towards the end of the week, I look back at all the tasks that I managed to complete, and I feel motivated and accomplished and of course, less stressed. Hopefully, the above tips make it easier for you to make and follow your timetable.
🦋 Highlight of the week: It has to be my mental health placement. Human beings are an amazing creation of God, SubhanAllah (Allah is free from imperfection). The more I learn about them, the more I feel like I don’t know myself and the people around me. It increases my curiosity about how humans behave, and how our social and environmental exposures can impact us in a negative/positive way. How do these factors contribute to our personality? Is it fixed or a bit of discipline and determination can change it? The questions are endless since humans are so complex and that’s what I like about studying medicine.
Have a good week ahead and do share your views about what you think makes us an amazing creation.