For this blog post, I want to write about one of the most helpful and practical things that have guided my journey at OSU: efficient time management. Prior to coming to OSU, I struggled to come up with a regular schedule for balancing school, work, and other priorities. Through efficient time management and careful course planning, I’ve been able to graduate in 3 years by taking at least 18 credits each term. I struggled early on with managing time well, but have gotten into a good schedule by focusing efforts on these methods letting me have more time outside of classes.
One thing that I have utilized since my first year in school in day-to-day tasks has been the Pomodoro method for working. This method involves 25 minutes of intense focus working, then allowing a 5-minute break. Repeat this for two hours (4 cycles), and then take a 15-minute break before starting over. I found this method to be very helpful in keeping focus for long periods of time, where in the past, I would feel burned out from working after a couple of hours. Even though the amount of breaks is increased, I found that I would get more work done using the Pomodoro method than simply working for hours straight.
A second thing I have found very helpful in managing time has been efficiently viewing videos at sped-up times. Studies have shown that watching videos sped up does not detract from comprehension up to a certain point. I think that with practice, the cap can be increased even further. I found that when watching videos for long periods of time at normal speed, I would get distracted and end up not paying attention and missing key information. When watching videos at higher speeds, not only do you get the same information in a shorter amount of time, but you also are forced to pay closer attention, making it harder to get distracted. I discovered a Chrome extension that allows you to speed up any video any amount past the regular cap of most videos. It depends on the speaker, I’ve been able to speed up most videos between 2x to 3x speeds. For example, by watching a 2-hour lecture at 3x speed the entire video could be watched in just under 40 minutes. This saves over 1 hour of time that can then be used on working on assignments.
