Planning: Task breakdown structure

When you have identified a set of clear objectives you can then begin to break down each task into manageable chunks. So, for example, say one of your objectives reads: By Friday, 26th October I will have finished reading the play. If there are 100 pages in the play and Fridy 26th is 10 study days away, you will need to do 10 pages per day.

A task breakdown structure is essentially a 'to do' list of all the tasks that need to be done in order to complete the activity/project at hand.

Based on the three objectives you wrote earlier, can you now derive a task breakdown structure from them in the form of a ‘to-do’ list?

Planning: Prioritising

There are times when you will have multiple overlapping goals and when it looks as if there will not be enough time to complete everything on your ‘to do’ list. In this situation you will need to prioritise tasks based on both their urgency and their importance. It is critical to include both criteria here: you don’t want to end up doing all the urgent tasks and find yourself with no time for the important ones. Remember it is not the quantity of what you do, but the quality and value of it that is important. You could prioritise using the system hereunder.

You could also have four trays, one allocated to each of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th as above. Remember that if you do not have enough time, forget about the 4th quadrant entirely. One thing you can be sure of is that there will be lots of things you could do at university. You will probably find it helpful to use this priority graph to help you to work out what tasks and activities are most important each week. You could also prioritise in terms of the difficulty of the tasks. So, for example, it might be a good idea to get into the habit of beginning each study session with the subject or task you find most difficult.