Manage your time wisely

ARE you spending too much time on Facebook? Are you like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland: always in a panicky rush with stress levels going sky high? Time management can help you gain a little breathing space.

Find out what’s up

Keep a log of your daily activities for about two weeks and see what you do that is productive and what is not.

Are you spending too much time reading e-mails? Limit the times you check your inbox. Spending too much time on social media? Set your phone to limit yourself to five-minute sessions.

Plan for energy

Handling demanding jobs during your peak energy periods throughout the week allows you to get more done in less time. Are you happiest on Mondays? Move your most important work to that day.

If you are a morning person, schedule your intensive tasks for that time. Get a diary and enter all your major deadlines on a month-by-month view. Break down tasks into milestones.

Realistically approximate the amount of time it will take to complete each milestone and task. Enter your milestones into the week-by-week view. Add routine responsibilities into your weekly page. Now you know what you must do every week.

Share the load

You have to do your own work, but you can club together to get resources such as papers, magazine articles and book chapters needed for assignments. Whenever you can, share research tasks with a study buddy.

Switch off

One of the biggest time wasters is being too connected. When you’re studying, switch off your phone, disable your chat system and switch off Skype. Now you can get down to work without constant brain-draining interruptions.