Speaker 1: A lot of time management advice we get from productivity gurus were not meant for students. For example, delegation.

Speaker 2: Now, as somebody who runs their own business, I delegate things like checking my email or editing this video, for example. Maybe you have a lawn that you don't wanna mow.

Speaker 1: What are students able to delegate? Are you gonna have your little brother go to class for you? Another example is hell yes or no.

Speaker 3: Hell yeah or no. Just like learning to be okay with saying no to stuff. If I get an email from someone saying, hey, do you wanna do this thing? And I'm thinking, maybe it sounds kind of all right. Then my default position is gonna be no.

Speaker 1: Everything is an obligatory hell yes for a student. When can we ever say, no, I don't wanna take this exam or meh, I don't feel like studying. So instead, here's a time management framework that's actually built for students. And it's part of our ongoing series, study skills. It's as easy as one, two, three, four, five. Let me explain. For this method, you only need to master one skill that will make time management easier over the long run. And that is understanding how long it really takes for you to do something. Our brains are really bad at estimating this. So pay attention to how long it takes you, especially for things that you do often. For example, going to the gym actually includes getting ready, driving to the gym and washing up after. Or eating lunch actually includes preparing the food or waiting in line to pay for it. The best thing to do is to literally time yourself. I used to always overestimate how long it would take me to do reading assignments or to do 20 flashcards. But after timing myself, I realized that I can get a lot of work done in all the random bits of time throughout the day, like in between classes or on the bus ride home that would have otherwise been wasted. Next, you'll only need two items to carry out this entire time management system, a calendar and a piece of paper. Or you can use your smartphone if you have one. But don't worry about all these fancy to-do list apps and routine trackers and stuff like that. If you can master this analog method, then you can later customize it and make it as sophisticated as you need it to be. Now, there are three steps to this time management system. This is based off of Cal Newport's book, so shout out to him. The three steps are, number one, whenever a new task or assignment comes up throughout the day, you wanna quickly jot it down on your piece of paper. For me, the hardest part about this entire system is just remembering to write things down on the spot. But the more you do it, the easier it gets. Step two happens the next morning. You wanna plan your day based on what needs to be done. And step three is to move all other tasks to future dates in the calendar. So I'm gonna show you an example of what the three steps look like in action, but I wanna emphasize four rules that really made this system work for me, especially when I was studying for my dual degrees. First rule is it has to be flexible. We're not trying to be Elon Musk and plan every minute of our day in order to run four companies at the same time. We're students. We need to be ready on a moment's notice when our friends hit us up for an impromptu ramen run. The second rule is it needs to be easy to restart after periods of neglect. I love this idea. It's also from Cal Newport. We're human. We're not perfect. We're going to miss days, and that's okay. But once you've seen how organization can change your life, you're gonna have a hard time going long periods of time without it. Number three is it has to reduce stress. And we do this by offloading all the things we need to remember onto our paper. Having obligations and deadlines kind of floating around in your head is exhausting. Plus, it makes it impossible to relax when you want to. As author David Allen says, your mind is for having ideas, not holding them. So this is why we want to immediately record any tasks or deadlines that we get and offload them from our brain. And four, it has to prioritize our tasks. It's impossible to do everything. We can't manage to go to every party or join every club. Sometimes it's not even possible to do every single assignment for every class. So we have to pick and choose what's important to us. So that's why this method consolidates all our options and clearly displays in front of us so that we can make informed decisions when it matters. With these rules in mind, let's look at a typical Thursday for young college Matty. Matty wakes up at 8.30 a.m. for class at nine. He starts by pulling out his list from yesterday containing all the tasks that he had recorded throughout the day. Now he looks at his calendar to see what's already been scheduled. He has class at nine and 11 a.m. There are dinner plans with his friends at 7 p.m. Then a party for the newly matched rookies at 9 p.m. He wants to go to the gym before dinner, so he plans to have all of his schoolwork done by 5 p.m. Now he looks at all the tasks that need to be done. Biology assignment due today, calculus problem set due tomorrow, script a YouTube video, return Breath of the Wild to Kev, or keep it and buy the DLC, buy his big bro Mike a new iPad for his birthday, find a summer internship, and make lo-fi beats for a study with me video. Now Matty just needs to fit the most important tasks into the open slots. Luckily, Matty has developed the skill of knowing exactly how much time it takes for him to do certain tasks, so this step is a breeze. He can finish the biology assignment and submit it in between class. He can also do some random chores in this hour, like returning the video game or slaying Ganon for the 50th time this week. It would likely take him about two hours each to do calculus and script the YouTube video, so he schedules them both after lunch. That takes him up to 5 p.m. and probably all the time he has for today. The other things on the list can get pushed to future dates because they aren't as urgent. And that's it. Matty spent less than five minutes recording his task and planning his day, all while dropping off the kids at school. But of course, his schedule doesn't always go according to plan, but it's flexible enough that nothing will get missed. He returns breath of the wild to Kev, but they end up playing a little too long and go for an impromptu late lunch. Then they find out that Techno is working on the calculus problem set, so Matty rearranges his schedule. He only has a little time before the calculus study group, so he'll get as much of the YouTube script done as possible and finish the rest tomorrow. Imagine what life would have been like if he didn't have such a flexible time management system. He'd probably forget all the menial tasks and allow them to build up. Plus he'd be more stressed when last minute study sessions arise. But he kept his cool throughout the day. He was able to record new tasks onto his list so that he can plan again the next morning and the whole process starts over. If this was helpful, let us know by liking the video. And here I have another simple tutorial video to help make Academy life a little less chaotic. Check it out and I'll see you there.