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Managing Your Life and Online Degree

WGU on June 18, 2010

One of the most common reasons people decide not to pursue a degree is time management. Many people look at their full-time jobs and family life and think “I don’t have a minute to spare!” While you may be busy, Western Governor’s online university is designed to allow students to manage their lives and studies effectively. Below are some tips to help you on your way to earning an online degree. You may have more time than you think!

Make time for yourself. You may be thinking, “easier said than done,” but a little alone time can go a long way. One of the benefits of attending an online university is flexibility, so take advantage of it! Ask your family for a designated amount of peace and quiet each day, then retreat to your home office and make them honor it. This tactic will give you the structure you need to stick to a study schedule, and it will help your family support you along the way.

Work smart, not hard. Think about your daily routine and look for ways to save time. If you cook dinner for your family every night, try finding recipes to bake or broil instead of stove-top dishes that require constant attention. Use the time you would have spent with a spatula in hand to work on your online degree. Similarly, group your errands into one trip rather than three or four outings throughout the week. Stop by the grocery store, bank, dry cleaners, etc. on Monday and use the time you save on Tuesday and Wednesday to catch up on work.

Change your habits. Many people feel the impulse to crash on the sofa the moment they come home from work. While a break is necessary on especially rough days, try coming home and immediately putting yourself in student mode. Chances are that your brain is still active from your day job activities, and it will be easier to stay motivated if you save your downtime for later in the evening.

Incorporate your studies. Ask yourself this question as you are going about your day: “Could I use this time to study?” The right mindset is imperative in achieving any goal, especially an online degree. Get in the mindset of using once-passive time as online university time. If you frequent the gym, bring your work with you to review while on the elliptical machine or treadmill. If your children are involved in after-school activities, find a spot on the bleachers to study or while sitting in your car waiting for soccer practice to end. You don’t have to sacrifice your daily routine in order to earn an online degree. Using your time more efficiently will ensure that you can do both. Small changes can have a large impact on your life, especially when it comes to furthering your education. Your long-term career is important to you, so work on making short-term changes in your life to facilitate your future goals.

Tags: online degree, online university, time management
Posted in Balancing Life and School | 00 Comments »

Be Productive, Be Happy

admin on March 15, 2010

Earning a degree online can save students time by allowing them a chance to study and learn at their own pace, the unfortunate fact is that many well-intentioned students fall behind because of poor time management and productivity skills. The frustration that ensues is well known and universally understood.

Below are six tips on how students can optimize their online learning productivity:

1. Become a time management sleuth. Start by taking an inventory of where your time goes in a given week. How much time is devoted to work, family, and other activities? This will help clarify where energy is focused and what adjustments can be made in order to fit in study time.

2. Plan and prioritize. Some tasks can seem overwhelming when you consider them in their entirety. By creating a plan for breaking down assignments into smaller, more manageable chunks, you can enjoy a greater sense of accomplishment. Set mini-deadlines and review the plan regularly to remain on track. Prioritize what is most important and identify potential conflicts that may be future roadblocks for long-term success.

3. Every minute counts. Even those few minutes in the waiting room at the dentist’s office are worth something. Do you commute by bus or train? Bring your notes and have a quick review. Even if you feel that those few minutes are not enough to make studying productive, use those minutes to get other things on your schedule out of the way. Eliminating the small things that may get in your way later when you should be studying.

4. Is that on The Schedule? Make a study schedule and stick to it! Routine is key. Study for briefer periods–with faithful regularity–and repeat day-in, day-out. If you can accept the comfortable rhythm of shorter but regularly scheduled time frames in which to tackle the work, course work seems less daunting.

5. Create an environment. A quiet, distraction-free environment is crucial to succeeding at online studying. Communicate with friends and family that studying will take place at a certain place at a certain time, keeping interruption at a minimum. Keep study areas well organized and stocked with things you will need for studying.

6. Don’t forget to ask, ask, ask. Mentors and online student communities are there to help. Students should never be afraid of asking too many questions, or the wrong questions. Students who regularly check in with their mentors and who are specific about the kind of help they need, find there is little or no disruption to their studying routine.

Feel like you can do this? Certainly you can. Now go check your schedule and get to work!

Posted in Adjusting to Online Learning, Balancing Life and School, Productivity | 00 Comments »

Online Student Roadmap

WGU on August 19, 2008

Would it help to step through an example?

What I do is write each goal on a 3×5 index cards, then lay them out together on the table to see what patterns and strategies appear, what needs to be broken down further, what should be done in some sequential order, what has a fixed deadline, what you need to study next, what should come later. It’s very easy to prioritize from there – I know what’s important for me, I know how much time I have, I have a pretty good idea how much time each one of these is going to take, and this way I can work in all the other commitments and expectations, and fill in the voids with goals that are not time critical. That gives me a working model – or at least a model I can work with. I pencil in the start and completion dates on the index cards as I go along.

Having done that much, I start putting the start dates on my desk calendar. A flag automatically goes up if I have to flip back on the calendar – sometimes it’s not going to paint me into a corner, but sometimes it might so I have to rethink a little, and see what might be a better sequence or start date. Once everything is set on my calendar, I go back through it one more time, this time putting in the target dates for completion. Again, a flag goes up if I have to flip back – yada-yada-yada.

For me, this is always a process, not an event; so I might do this at the beginning of the term and several more times before the cycle begins again at the beginning of the next term. Usually, though, I mark the index card with the final grade on completion and move it to the back of my card index file. I don’t use color coded cards; but they might be useful for some. I do use monthly separators, and have two sets of those in the file for the next 24 months, moving them to the back as the calendar rolls over. Again, if there’s a card that shows up somewhere it shouldn’t be, that’s going to trigger another flag to find out why. [Anything scheduled beyond 24 months still gets a position in the second 12 months in the appropriate month. In time this will come to the front each year until it is current; each time, though, I evaluate whether it's still a valid goal, and move it back to the next year if it is; if it has been accomplished along the way, I'll move it to the very back with the other completed goals; it's it's no longer a valid goal, the card is tossed out.]

That part is ridiculously simply, but very efficient.

The part I especially like sounds like something straight out of B.F. Skinner and his research in operant conditioning – appropriate ‘rewards’ to reinforce behavior.

The ‘reward’ depends on how much time and effort I actually had to put into it, and how much I actually got out of it. If it was relatively quick, easy, and painless, it doesn’t warrant much, usually something I was going to buy or do anyhow. If it was more difficult, time-consuming, and downright painful, I’ll think I’ve earned a moderate splurge.

Whether goals are short- or long-term really depends on your perspective. For example, for our purposes getting through the coursework and getting the degree might be a long-term goal – but only a short-term goal, a milestone in your career. With distance learning, we’re mostly taking one or two courses at a time, and those short-term goals leading up to completing the degree requirements can be further broken into weekly and daily goals. If you’re like me and have several shorter study sessions throughout the day, I think it helps to stay on track and on schedule to focus almost exclusively on getting through whatever it is you have as the goal for that session. I like a nice, even, steady pace throughout the term, with no last minute binges or all-nighters; I’d rather take the week before finals to review and this way I don’t have to make up for goofing off all semester.

Tags: balance, balancing family and school, Balancing Life and School, balancing work and school, daily goals, degree roadmap, distance learning, getting it all done, goals, making goals, online learning, planning your degree, roadmap, saving time, staying on track, time management, tips to save time, weekly goals, Western Governors University, WGU
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Setting Goals

WGU on August 12, 2008

What better source than a PhD candidate who has ‘been there, done that’ to help you through the fine points of goal setting? More than anyone wants to know about SMART and goal setting.

By now, it should have occurred to you that all these topics about college reading, writing, study skills and strategies are interrelated. Google one thing and take what you need; but if you miss it, it will probably come up again before you’re finished.

Randy Pausch has been a bit of hot topic on campuses around the country this past semester. Google that, too, because there are presentation at several venues available. I would recommend watching one of the longer ones – it’s worth the hour or more; the excerpts leave out 90% of what he has to say. [Randy Pausch died Friday, July 25, 2008.]

Another excellent one is The Top 10 Steps to Set and Achieve Your Goals – Every Time! by Dr. Philip E. Humbert. So is Creating S.M.A.R.T. Goals at the same website.

What is always implied and too often left out of the discussion is the physical act of writing it down – arguably as crucial as any strategy for getting from point A to point B. As with taking notes, there is a lot more going here than meets the eye. Writing down you goals somehow hard-wires it into your brain, probably somewhere deep within the subconscious mind. (I’m not at all certain the concept of subconscious mind is still valid. I sort of dropped the subject entirely when the only dude who made any sense to me started ranting about getting his insights from three spooks who lived in the hallway. I foolishly thought this was supposed to be ’science’ – but now days, science is primarily used as a weapon to scare the hell out of everybody.)

Other aspects that are too often overlooked and effectively undermines the whole process are commitment, determination, self-motivation, and self-discipline. All very good topics that really deserve individual attention.

You cannot go very far without running into SMART – the acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely (or time limited).

Other aspects that are too often overlooked and effectively undermines the whole process are commitment, determination, self-motivation, and self-discipline – but those are topics for future blog entries.

Tags: accomplishing your goals, balancing school and kids, balancing work and school, goal setting, going to school online, how to get it all done, online school, reaching goals, school tips, setting goals, time management tips
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Flexible Scheduling

WGU on July 18, 2008

Along with making adjustments for your new priorities, enrolling in a degree program will necessarily mean some fairly broad changes to your daily/weekly schedule. Some of your current commitments are immutable; others will give you some flexibility. Since these tend to be primarily time spent with your family and friends, it’s probably a good idea to get their help in setting up your new schedule – you’re certainly going to need their co-operation later.

The most effective and efficient approach is to do a little bit each day, rather than allowing it to accumulate until the weekend. Something invariably comes up, then what happens to your careful planning? Besides, weekends are supposed to be “your” time to use however you choose – for rest, relaxation, and recreation, not slaving over textbooks and tethered to them and your computer all day. I know you think now that you’re different, that you’ll be able to pull this off, but I’ve seen that quickly degenerate into full-blown resentment and unnecessarily blaming coursework for nothing but misery and torture; that generally won’t last more than one term, then you’ll drop out of college.

What I would recommend is starting with three or four hours a day, and leaving one day during the week and one day over the weekend ‘open’ for family and friends, but be flexible. Similarly, you need to spread your time evenly across the weekly schedule for exercise, chores, and ‘alone’ time. You can find forms online for printing out a weekly schedule, or pick up printed appointment books and desk calendars in a variety of formats. [I prefer the desktop year-at-a-glance type.]

What I have found most useful is to read through the entire syllabus or study guide first thing to get an overview of what to expect so I can adapt my schedule to it as necessary. With the competency-based model at WGU I don’t have classes or cohorts, so when and how I go about preparing for the proctored exams and performance tasks is entirely up to me. That’s the ultimate “flexibility” and “convenience”! But it does require an uncommon amount of self-discipline and self-motivation.

Fortunately, a lot of the lower division work, the traditional freshman and sophomore years, is simply an extension of courses you had in high school, so these may go significantly faster and smoother than the upper division courses that are completely new territory for you. Better still, the study guides are almost always designed around a weekly schedule, which helps enormously to keep you on track and keep you moving toward your goal without it becoming oppressive.

Tags: balance, balancing work and school, establishing a routine, flexbile scheduling, managing your time, online learning, saving time, scheduling effectively, time management, time management help, time saving tricks, Western Governors University, WGU
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