Up until my late 20’s, I’d always felt that I had pretty poor time management skills. It was difficult for me to find the time in the day to get everything done that I needed to get done. At this point in my life I had a wife, a job, and a dog. And yet it still felt like there weren’t enough hours in the day. Fast forward five years; I still have the wife, still have the dog, and the job, but I also have a six month old, a two year old, am in my senior year of my computer science degree, and have a much more demanding job (and searching for a new one). Yet somehow I feel that I am able to accomplish everything I set out to do at the beginning of the day.
I attribute this success to growing my time management skills. Setting realistic goals of what can be done for the day, the week, and the month, and then prioritizing those goals with realistic expectations. Using a calendar for my personal life and professional life has been one of the driving forces behind this newfound ability. At the beginning of each week, I create a list of what I need and want to accomplish that week. I estimate how long each task will take by breaking each them down into smaller tasks. I then add these to my calendar, leaving room for feeding my kids, playing with them, bedtimes, cooking dinner, etc.
Ensuring I have enough time to study, complete each assignment, and feel like I actually retained the knowledge has been the most difficult task to manage. It’s hard to know how much time an assignment will take before you start, which is why I try to start early and work on it often. The key is to never get behind (way easier said than done). But as I have progressed through the program, I’ve gotten a lot better at estimating how long these assignments will take and mapping my time out accordingly.
Time management is such an important skill that is transferrable to all aspects of life. Showing potential employers that I can juggle a lot on my plate at once has been incredibly helpful when interviewing for jobs, showcasing that I know how to prioritize what is important. As long as you have a plan and the right tools to get it done, you can accomplish much more than you think.