Dr Pumzile Molimi presents five tips for time management to help students on their medical school journey.

Assess your time expenditure

The first step to learning how to manage your time efficiently is to assess how and what you spend your time on. To make this easy, you could sit down at the end of the day and write out daily activities (including trivial ones) and the approximate time you spend on each one of them. Also, identify and note your timewasters and distractors. Once you have reflected on your daily time expenditure, you will now be able to see how much time you waste and therefore how much you can start saving and using efficiently. 

Create a time schedule

Now that you have assessed your time expenditure, you’ll need to schedule your activities. You could draft a timetable using a pen and paper or a digital modality, either way will work. Your timetable has to be realistic and easy to follow, don’t set out to do too many activities, just the most important ones and those that have to be done. Starting out your day with a clearly drafted plan can help you go through the day with intention, and help you get the most out of your day. Of note, you might adjust or completely change your schedule setting from time to time as you discover ways to make it more efficient and convenient for your daily living.

Set a screen time limit

Remember that in the first step you had to identify your timewasters and distractors, now that you’ve done that, you’ll need to set a limit to those. Some smartphones have a feature that monitors and limits time spent on applications. If your phone has that feature, it would be best to start utilizing it. In today’s digital world, one often finds themselves spending a significant amount of time on the screen, and less time attributed to their most important daily tasks. Setting a screen time limit can help you avoid that.

Set reminders

As we normally tend to forget to follow up on our plans/schedules, a constant reminder of your scheduled activities can assist you in completing them.

Prioritize activities

Doing what needs to be done every day is not always easy, and we often procrastinate as a result of that. But having the most important tasks at the top of your to-do list is a smarter choice. Doing the important tasks in time can spare you from the anxiety that comes with doing them at the last minute. So, ensure that at the beginning of your day while you’re rested and still fresh, you get the important tasks out of the way first. Having the rest of the day to yourself and friends/family will feel even better knowing that your most important tasks are completed.

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