Time management

[Camilla]

Does anyone have any advice for managing time between applications, keeping up with the news, practising case studies, interview prep, full-time work/studies and other commitments? I am literally sleeping five hours a night at the moment and still not managing to cover all areas.

Any tips would be welcome!

 

[Jaysen]

It’s very tough - and I’m curious to know how you guys do this too.

I was actually given an exam bar in my final year at university because I chose to prioritise applications over the other stuff. (Just meant I had to have 100% attendance or I wasn’t allowed to take my exams!)

 

[Abstruser]

@Jai C. I swear I thought you tagged me in this thread?

It is really tough to juggle multiple commitments. I’m still trying to keep it all together while doing the LPC, but a few things I find help with time management (apologies if this is a bit rambling as I’ve just typed this all out on my commute home):

• Get enough sleep! I can’t function efficiently without 7 hours of sleep. I can definitely drag myself through a day on 4-5 hours of sleep but I find I lose focus and stamina faster than if I were well-rested. So allocating time for rest comes at the very top of my priorities, and the rest is built around that.
• Figure out which tasks you can multi-task. For example to keep up with the news, I tend to listen to FT podcasts and/or read news while getting ready in the morning or commuting.
• Sort tasks in order of difficulty. So for study-related stuff, I tend to allocate working on more difficult aspects of tutorial prep for the first half of the day when my energy and focus is high. More menial tasks like reading lectures or articles I tend to do in the evening as it doesn’t need that much focus.
• Break tasks up into smaller tasks. I mentioned on another thread some time ago that I used to split writing applications into two parts - researching and writing. When I was working full-time I would spend weekday evenings (and whatever spare time I could glean) just researching firms that I had planned and decided to apply to. I kept a word document of my research (usually just copy pasting stuff from grad brochures, articles etc) and on weekends I would spend time actually writing the applications. Having done the research beforehand made it easier and more efficient to write the applications in one go on the weekend.
• Set firm priorities. It’s exam season for me now, which means I’ve had to have a good hard look at how I spend my time in a day and decide what I’m willing to sacrifice in order to put in more exam prep. Personally that means I’ve cut down on gym the past few weeks, and also set restrictions on how much I access social media. The screen time feature on iPhones is super helpful for this actually - you can see how many hours you spend on social media and (I’m a bit sheepish admitting this) if you cut out 30-60 minutes a day of screen time, that’s 4-7 extra hours in a week to do other things.
• Keep a calendar or diary. I spend ten minutes every weekend planning the week ahead and in exam periods I plan my study days at the end of every day based on how much I got done that day. It helps relieve stress actually knowing that you’ve planned out how to manage and achieve the million-and-one things you have to do, and can just focus on what to do for that day.
• Finally - be kind to yourself! Sometimes you will not meet your daily goals or some days you may be just burnt out. When that happens don’t beat yourself up - take an hour to unwind, have a walk, whatever - and just continue doing your best moving forward. You can’t change what has happened but you’re always in control of what you choose to do next.

I hope this helps. All the very best!

 

[Camilla]

Thanks Abtruser! I really like these ideas, especially researching during the week and writing on the weekend. I try to listen to FT podcasts on my drive to work which does help.

I think I will write a prioritised to-do-list for the week so I can try and stay focused on achieving everything I want to achieve.

 

[Giovanni Figa]

Hi Camilla

Couple of points
1) Echoing the above - get enough sleep! Do something to wind down before you you go to bed to ensure you also get good quality sleep.
2) Ensure you're being productive/efficient whilst working (this is linked to #1). Working for 4 hours at 100% efficiency trumps working for 8 hours at 50% efficiency. Ways to do this:
a) Work in blocks of 25 minutes followed by short breaks (step away from the computer for a few minutes, go outside for some fresh air - checking your phone during breaks is a no no as this stimulates/tires you out more).
3) Accept that you're probably trying to do too much which is self defeating. Take a step back and ask yourself if there is something you are trying to do that can wait until later. If trying to do everything means you're unable to do anything to a good standard then the whole process is self defeating.

Good luck!

Giovanni

 

[Syafiqkay92]

Hi Camilla

There are so many things to do and I agree sometimes it is very difficult to do everything.

One thing that I learned over the past few months is to be aware of Pareto principles and Parkinson law. Firstly, the Pareto principle states that 80% of effects come from 20% of actions. In practical terms, what I did is making a list of everything that I want and need to do and prioritise 20% of actions that gives the most benefit to my end goal. To give you an example, from talking to my mentor, I identified that my strengths are commercial awareness and my weaknesses are my application and the delivery of my interview questions. So, out of all the things that I want and need to do, I picked out the top 20% that could give me the most advantage. I cut down on developing commercial awareness by focusing on skim-reading the FT every morning and reading a few email newsletter every day. I then focus on practising the delivery of my interview questions, writing applications and honing my English skills. I think in this respect, you need to reflect on your strengths and weakness and prioritise tasks that could help you the most.

Secondly, Parkinson law states that a task will expand to occupy the time we allocate to the task. If you allocate 20 days to write an essay, your work will occupy that 20 days but if you only have two hours, it will only take you two hours to write the essay. Think of all the last-minute essay that we have to do and how productive we are when the deadline is in just a few hours. I tried to emulate this kind of setting by giving myself a specific and achievable deadline. For example, if I want to work on an application, I would start with writing a goal statement. "In 30 minutes, I will write an application to firm XYZ and make sure that I have three points. If I don't have three points, I need to have at least 500 words on my thoughts about the question. Sometimes I am really stuck and I will end up writing something like this. "I don't have any idea at all because of reasons a, b and c. There are so many things I can write about and I am not too sure which one is the best ...". This works for me because writing helps me clarify my thinking and I learned that applications become better after re-writing. As long as I keep re-writing my application, my application will get better as I re-write. Of course, at every stage, think of the common advice that you receive for writing application like (1) be specific, (2) show, don't tell, (3) ask yourself "so what?", and etc. You can even compile a checklist that helps you to think before writing an application.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you learn anything more about time management. I am keen on this as I am working two jobs, spending about 56 hours every week on top of making applications, attending law firms events and developing commercial awareness.

Best wishes,
Syafiq.

 

[Jaysen]

Hi Camilla

There are so many things to do and I agree sometimes it is very difficult to do everything.

One thing that I learned over the past few months is to be aware of Pareto principles and Parkinson law. Firstly, the Pareto principle states that 80% of effects come from 20% of actions. In practical terms, what I did is making a list of everything that I want and need to do and prioritise 20% of actions that gives the most benefit to my end goal. To give you an example, from talking to my mentor, I identified that my strengths are commercial awareness and my weaknesses are my application and the delivery of my interview questions. So, out of all the things that I want and need to do, I picked out the top 20% that could give me the most advantage. I cut down on developing commercial awareness by focusing on skim-reading the FT every morning and reading a few email newsletter every day. I then focus on practising the delivery of my interview questions, writing applications and honing my English skills. I think in this respect, you need to reflect on your strengths and weakness and prioritise tasks that could help you the most.

Secondly, Parkinson law states that a task will expand to occupy the time we allocate to the task. If you allocate 20 days to write an essay, your work will occupy that 20 days but if you only have two hours, it will only take you two hours to write the essay. Think of all the last-minute essay that we have to do and how productive we are when the deadline is in just a few hours. I tried to emulate this kind of setting by giving myself a specific and achievable deadline. For example, if I want to work on an application, I would start with writing a goal statement. "In 30 minutes, I will write an application to firm XYZ and make sure that I have three points. If I don't have three points, I need to have at least 500 words on my thoughts about the question. Sometimes I am really stuck and I will end up writing something like this. "I don't have any idea at all because of reasons a, b and c. There are so many things I can write about and I am not too sure which one is the best ...". This works for me because writing helps me clarify my thinking and I learned that applications become better after re-writing. As long as I keep re-writing my application, my application will get better as I re-write. Of course, at every stage, think of the common advice that you receive for writing application like (1) be specific, (2) show, don't tell, (3) ask yourself "so what?", and etc. You can even compile a checklist that helps you to think before writing an application.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you learn anything more about time management. I am keen on this as I am working two jobs, spending about 56 hours every week on top of making applications, attending law firms events and developing commercial awareness.

Best wishes,
Syafiq.

Many great points here. To add to this, one thing I've found helpful is to work out when you are most productive (for me, that's first thing in the morning), and try to do the hardest/most important task you have.

That way, no matter how the rest of the day goes, you know you've attempted the important stuff.

 

[Camilla]

These suggestions are fantastic! Thank you.