Blog 1- Time Management

Hello everyone! My name is Alexandra Ayres, but I go by Allie. My learning style is mostly kinesthetic with a little visual mixed in. Because I am a kinesthetic learner it is extremely beneficial for me to reenact, teach or do whateverit is that I am learning. That means that if I am learning about the parts of the brain for psychology, it is best for me to find and label them myself and then show someone else how to do it. Because I am a visual learner, I need to see things done. As it was discussed in my first IC with Wendy, I could sit in a lecture for four hours and still not really be able to remember or understand a lot because of my learning styles.

The first strategy I used for good time management at the beginning of the week was D's Do and Due Organizer:

I found that D's Organizer was very helpful because I have a lot of exams and papers due and I know when they're due, but I never take to time to plot out how much time it will actually take for me to finish studying or writing a paper. In a lot of my classes I don't really have nightly homework, so D's Organizer helps me to sort out the big projects into more manageable daily tasks. If you have a lot of nightly homework I can understand that the organizer may be a bit hectic to use, but for me it was very helpful to see how much I was actually getting done and understanding when I plotted the time appropriately.

The second strategy I used was the 20 min test prep:

Every day after class I would spend 20 minutes making some notecards for my upcoming NSD 225 (Nutrition) exam. I put in time on my D's Organizer to do the 20 minute test prep. For this semester I have a lot of major tests to study for. Last semester I had a lot of papers. The severe difference between the two semesters makes these exams seem sort of daunting. The 20 min test prep helped me to just sit down and start studying. That's always tough for me to do. I could keep thinking of starting something, but often times I don't start until the absolute last minute. Knowing that I only had to sit there for 20 minutes was a relief. After the first time, when I realized how much I could accomplish in 20 minutes I would compete with my past prep to see if I could accomplish more.

These strategies that I used this week were relatively easy to incorporate into my schedule and really helped my week to seem less daunting.