Posted by Jen Zeman on January 30th, 2009
Time management is not as difficult as many people believe it to be. I admit not having children made prioritizing and managing time a little easier for me; however, those readers who have children can hopefully take some of this advice and tweak it to their specific needs.
When I attended UMUC for my online degree, I also worked full-time while taking three classes a semester. I knew I had a lunch hour, some evenings, a full weekend, and vacation days I could leverage in completing my school work. My employer offered flex time, so I also had off every other Friday which helped tremendously. If your employer doesn’t currently offer flex time, perhaps now would be the ideal time to propose it your boss. Before the start of each semester I would map out the major projects that were due and scheduled off accordingly. For example, if in mid-October a major paper was due, I would schedule a couple of days off a few weeks prior to allow me time to complete the paper, without stressing out. The less stress, the more successful you will be!
Before starting my classes I decided to come up with a game plan in order to quash my fears and guarantee my success. The game plan was simple: organized time management. Being organized is by far the number one way to guarantee success with an online college and to effectively manage your time. It is essential to devise a plan of how you will study and complete assignments. Here are the five tactics I used:
- Plan your semester prior to the start of the semester. If you work full-time, schedule days off strategically so you can give yourself enough time to complete major class assignments/projects without scrambling at the last minute. This will alleviate a ton of stress.
- Assign a separate binder for each class you take a semester. Print the syllabus and put it in the front of the binder. This eliminates confusion and a constant search for important documents. Even though all your required documents will be available to you online, having them at your fingertips makes life less stressful.
- Assign a designated room in your home as your “school zone”. Make it a place where you can close a door and have privacy for studying and completing assignments.
- In this room, hang a large white board on the wall. Use this to write down assignments and major projects for each class, along with corresponding due dates. It is a great feeling erasing completed projects off the board! This was a lifesaver for me.
- Stick to your allotted school hours. If you plan on using Saturday morning for studying and school assignments, let everyone know not to bother you – you will be unavailable. Sit down and complete school work first before anything else! The laundry can wait! In fact, while in school, to make the most of time management, reschedule your household chores to make the most of your off time. For example, if you always do the laundry and grocery shopping Saturday morning, start doing one load of clothes a night Monday through Thursday and do the grocery shopping Friday evening.
Time management is crucial for success in an online college situation. Master it now for a stress-free college experience now through graduation!
One of my favorite pieces of playground equipment was the teeter-totter. I used to spend hours going up and down with my siblings or friends. Occasionally we would stop moving by sitting in such away that the long board of the teeter-totter was balanced, and we could relax and talk. Relaxing was good but the ride was better.
I thrive on activity. The more the teeter-totter goes up and down the happier I am. There is a down side to this love of activity. I am the queen of overcommitting. One day someone from church called and asked me to be on another committee. My husband answered this call and I heard him say, “If she signs up for one more thing I will have to put her in a psychiatric hospital. “ He didn’t pass the phone to me and pretended I wasn’t home.
There were two things that really worked for me in regards to the time management of my over committed life, early mornings and weekends. I scheduled my assignments and preparation for my own students so that I did the bulk of this commitment leisurely on weekends. I bounced out of bed every day an hour or two before my two children to check my online classes and to respond to emails or posts from other class members. I didn’t always need all this time, but it established a routine. I worked ahead in the class if I finished before I needed to get my children going and me to my job. I saved my work in Microsoft Word to post later on. At the beginning of each online class I entered due dates into Yahoo calendar. I scheduled the calendar to send me an email two days before the assignment was due, and then another email reminder the day it was due.
Evenings were reserved for my children. I wasn’t going to entrust them to others all day and leave them with babysitters at night, although they were in school full time before I took online classes. My eldest was a night owl and it was difficult to get him to calm down and even more difficult to get him up the next morning. I would often fall asleep on the couch before he was quiet for the night. There was no way I was going to do online class work at this time. Even if I did outlast my son’s ride on his teeter-totter, I was too exhausted to keep playing on mine.
Parenting means that you have to put your own needs on hold. I didn’t play bridge or have much of a social life. My children quickly morphed into productive and happy adults. I am glad they were my priority during their formative years. I can’t get those years back. The online classes are still there.
The teeter-totter of my life now involves a full time teaching job and private tutoring at night to pay for my daughter’s college tuition. Because of a predisposition to high cholesterol and my body’s rejection of statin drugs, my morning computer time has been replaced by 45 minutes to an hour of working out on an elliptical machine in my basement. I watch the morning news and after my old muscles have warmed up I actually enjoy this new routine. Now I work on any classes I take, for an hour or two in the late evening or early evening on the days I don’t tutor. I usually don’t work in the summer so it is prime time for me to schedule online classes. Without my children the teeter-totter has slowed and I still enjoy the ride.
Posted by Jeff Davis on December 24th, 2008
It really is important to do your homework, especially when you are considering pursuing an online education where the final results will benefit you for the rest of your life! When choosing an online school, there are many things to consider such as whether the school is accredited or not, what programs and degrees are offered, and help with financial aid. Asking good questions can help guide you into making the right decision.
Before enrolling in an online degree program, I had requested information from 10 different online schools. Only 6 provided me with enough information from which I was able to make an educated decision (no pun intended). That helped to narrow down the online colleges field and so began my contact of the admissions office at these remaining schools which I deemed necessary in order to gather the final pertinent information needed for making my final decision on which online school and degree program is going to work best for me. Among the questions that I still needed answered were items like: the school and its history, financial aid, etc.
I feel that it is important to note that this decision was not one that I wanted to rush into since it would have long-term dire consequences in both my professional and personal life. To me, education is more than just getting a degree, but also about what the degree provides in terms of value such as the skills learned and the available career opportunities it provides.
Finally, let me say that nothing can really replace a good education. Education helps you in your overall development and broadens your outlook on life. As I look back on my research of information, the requests that I made, and the final choices that I made, it was arguably one of the hardest searches in my life but definitely the most rewarding.
