Tips for success:

Motivation comes and goes

Discipline is greater than motivation but ultimately is will wear down from time to time.

Changing your environment to make the things you should be ding easier than the things you should
not be doing.

youTube search “tony robins time management”

* Tony is predominantly a strong advocate for the “motivation is the way to success” school of
thought. Most of the content has low production quality.

youTube search “arnold motivational speech”

* entertaining and inspirational, however it is perhaps a little Hollywood-esqu. Schwarzenegger is
extraordinary person with extraordinary genetic gifts

youTube search “change the world start by making your bed”

University of Texas at Austin 2014 Commencement Address - Admiral William H. McRaven

Also try “time management” and “time management for students”

Jordan Peterson's Ultimate Advice for Students and College Grads - STOP WASTING TIME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsNzAuYDgy0&t=678s

Bottom up and top down perspectives on time management

Ways to view managing your time.

1. Good: Managing your life time (Think big and understand your motivations)
 Holistic top down management

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  Begin with the end in mind
 Fails to make the most out of every moment in the here and now
2. Poor: Micro management of each moment (starting small and without direction)
 Bottom up management – no overarching story or direction
 Inflexible lists and schedules without priorities or planning
 A kind of crisis management dealing with each appointments as it falls due
3. Awesome: Set value consistent goals and plans, working backwards from end goal to now
 Combines both top down and bottom up approaches
 Facilitates staying motivated and on track
 Incorporates intermediate achievements and celebrates successes

#8: Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.

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Is your locus of control internal or external?

 Look for solutions, don't see problems

 View challenges as opportunities to grow
 It is good to feel like you are outside your comfort zone

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 A brief look at your comfort zone
Personal growth occurs when you are outside your comforts zone. That is, when you do not feel
comfortable and uneasy/uncertain.

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Identify your life roles
Life roles as a basis for thinking about your motivation and your big picture goals

 Primary relationship: Your relationship with yourself

 Life-long learner (academic - mental)
 Sports & Recreation (physical development)
 Self exploration (emotional/spiritual development)

We do not study/exist in a vacuum, relationships are important

Life happens around study - accept that and work with it not against it.

 Familial roles
 Community roles (friend, neighbour, volunteer)
 Professional roles (manager, supervisor, leader/mentor, employee/employer)

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 Self evaluation

Try to identify those life roles which are most important to you and reflect on your satisfaction,
sense of competency, and the amount of time you spend participating in each role.

Sense of competency Sense of satisfaction Sense of time spent

Role Low/Average/High Low/Average/High Low/Average/High

 Try to identify sources of role overload

 Look for correlations in your self-evaluation matrix
 Reflection and evaluation are critically important

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Goal setting
Traditional SMART model

An alternate model

Use a hybrid goal setting model

1. The goal must be specific, well defined, written down, able to be broken up into manageable
chunks each with reasonable/measureable time frames or other well defined milestones and
outcomes.
2. You must have the necessary skills and resources, be motivated/incentivised to accomplish
the end result, and have a sense of accountability/responsibility to achieve your goal.

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A word about motivation

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

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Setting goals exercise

1. Which life role?

2. What outcome(s)?
3. What timeframe(s)?
4. What are the milestones and how will progress be measured?
5. What value motivates you? Why do you want to achieve this?
6. What will keep you accountable and on track?

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Goals are like projects

Planning and sequencing milestones

Linear sequencing

Parallel sequencing

 Be flexible
 Don't worry about dead ends
 Allow time for reflection and analysis
 Be prepared to discontinue fruitless endeavours

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Thinking about how you spend your time
 Aim to take time from quadrants #4, then #3, put that time into #2 and consequently
spend less time in #1
 #4 - Will and motivation to say no to the path of least resistance
 #3 - Learn to say no and close some doors and say no to some choices
Dan Areily and the door game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13rfq9dqKPE
Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=VO6XEQIsCoM

Urgent Not Urgent

1 2

Crisis Planning
Important

Pressure problems Building relationships

Deadline driven Opportunities
Lose/lose arguments Constructive recreation
Practice/training
Reflection/Introspection
Constructive dialogue

3 4
Not Important

Interruptions Time wasters

Some phone calls Procrastination
Emails/FB messages Irrelevant news feeds
Some meetings Non-constructive recreation
Win/lose arguments Irrelevant discussion

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Time audits
Take a few minutes to try and recall what you did over the last three days. For better results keep
track of your time for a two week period.

Activity Duration (hrs)

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Total

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Self evaluate and be proactive

Reflecting on your personal time audit give some consideration to the following questions:

 Can you see any patterns in your behaviour?

 Are there times when you have left tasks before completion to do other things?
 Are you distracted easily?
 How many times were you interrupted during tasks?
 How could you have avoided interruptions?

Analyse your wasted time

Below are four areas where time is usually wasted. Take a look at the list and identify areas where
you feel you waste the most time. Think about the cause behind wasting the time. Use the self-help
table on the next page two and list in priority and write down how you can tackle them.

1. Your inner self 3. Lack of self-management

 Fear of failure  Biting off more than you can chew
 Low self esteem  Lack of delegation (wanting to do
 Fear of making a wrong decision everything yourself)
 Lack of urgency  Perfectionism
 Unable to say No  Socialising
 Self-doubt  Failure to listen or take notes
 Dreaming without action  Haste or impatience
2. Lack of planning 4. Poor control over work environment
 Lack of written goals  Telephone interruptions
 Quick decisions  Drop-in visitors
 Failure to break priorities into smaller  Too much paper work,
manageable parts  Meetings Incomplete, unclear or
 Lack of plan for meeting goals delayed information
 Lack of daily priorities  Confused responsibility and authority
 Shifting priorities  Over control by boss/bosses
 Poor crisis management
 Unrealistic time estimates

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Be proactive about dealing with your time wasting
Aspect of time wasting Possible causes Tactical solution

Procrastination Fear of not doing a perfect job or the Retrain my thought process
best I am capable of Done is better than none
I will always be able to do a better job
Use power hour to start

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Prioritise your actions

Weekly goals Priorities

A 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2 2 2 2

MON TUE WED THUR FRI SAT SUN

B

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Reflect on progress
Celebrate successes

Learn from failures and develop resilience

Plan ahead

Build up a plan - try to build up to planning 4 weeks ahead

At the end of each week add a new week to your plan

Review your progress

Questions to ask when you are reflecting:

Were my goals realistic/achievable?

Were my goals measureable?

Why did I fail to achieve my milestones?

Why was I successful in achieving my milestones?

Aim to have an internal locus of control:

Identify obstacles

Classify them as internal or external

Minimise risk exposure to external obstacles

Re-evaluate your life roles and goals

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Micro-time management and the power hour

 5-7 minutes of planning

 25 minutes of work
 3 minute break
 25 minutes of work
 5 minutes of review

1. If you struggle with narrowing your focus, or maintaining concentration reduce the times until you
build up your academic endurance.
2. Try to string your power hours together with 5 to 10 minute breaks in between.
3. Work towards being able to work for two 50 minute periods with a 2 minute break.
4. Be rigorous and use a stopwatch.
5. The less is more paradigm and virtuous cycles.

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What does a five minute plan look like?

1. Read the assignment (approx. 5 mins)

2. Find out when it is due, how much it is worth, what is the submission method (approx. 5 mins)
3. What parts of the unit is the assignment related to? (approx. 5 mins)

Some quick calculations: 150 hours for a 6 cp unit, each 1% of assessment weighting = 1.5hours

4. Review forum posts about assignment (5 mins)

5. Is there a Facebook group for this unit? Come back to this problem next hour if necessary.
6. Try to answer the first 25% of the assignment questions (45 mins? Or till my time runs out)

Review:

It took way longer that I expected to find out which parts of the unit materials the assignment related to...
and I'm still not sure. Allow more time for this next time.

The first few questions (25%) were easy (did them in only 15 mins) so I kept going but I got stuck on
problem 5 and now I don't know how to proceed?

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