WHAT IS TIME MANAGEMENT?
Time management is a critical skill for law students - we all know that the coursework is extensive and the workload can be overwhelming, but it is also a key skill that law firms will be looking for when interviewing. By effectively managing your time, you can ensure that you have enough time to study, complete assignments, and still have some fun.
In this blog post, we'll discuss the importance of time management for law students and share some tips and tricks to help you make the most of your time.
BUT IT’S MORE THAN JUST MANAGING YOUR TIME…
It's important to understand that time management is not just about managing your time, but also your energy. Lawyers need to be able to focus and concentrate for long periods, and that requires energy, so it's important to take care of yourself, both physically and mentally.
Make sure to get enough sleep, exercise, and eat well. And yes, we know that there are only 24 hours in a day and sleep is the easiest thing to give up to create more hours in the day… but we guarantee if you get enough sleep you’ll be able to smash through your list of work much faster than if you are trying to do it tired.
URGENCY vs IMPORTANCE
You need to learn to set realistic goals and priorities. As a law student, you have a lot of reading and writing to do, so it's important to set realistic goals for what you can accomplish in a day, week, or month. And no, a 100-point to-do list is not realistic!
Once you have set your goals, it's important to prioritize them. For example, if you have an exam coming up, it's important to prioritise studying for that exam over other tasks. One way to do this is to mark things as important and / or urgent:- Important and urgent tasks should be prioritised. For example writing an summative essay, or revising for an upcoming exam.
- Urgent but less important tasks can come next (but critically analyse whether the task is actually urgent or whether you think it’s urgent). This list often includes lots of ‘quick tick’ type tasks such as sending emails, booking trains etc. The best thing to do with these is batch these tasks together, block out an hour of your diary, put on some music and just knock through your list in one go.
- Then important but less urgent tasks (for example, applying for a law job) should not be ignored until the last minute. These type of tasks are the things we often procrastinate with, and ignore until the last minute - and then panic over. Instead of doing this, block off a chunk of time each week to give proper attention to these tasks. You will feel much less overwhelmed if you are making progress on these tasks each week.
- Finally, non-important and not-urgent tasks can come off of your to-do list completely!
SCHEDULE, SCHEDULE, SCHEDULE!
Your calendar is your best friend. Actively scheduling your work, marking deadlines, and blocking out time for fun is SO important if you want to fit everything into your day.
Blocking out time for tasks will help you stay organised and ensure that you don't miss any important deadlines. It's also important to schedule some time for fun and relaxation. It’s a well-known fact that you fill the time you are given to complete a task (yep… that’s why most of us always end up writing our essay the night before the deadline), so schedule in downtime and force your studies fit around this. If not, you risk not taking the time off that you need to refresh your brain properly, which means you will become way less effective when working (increasing your working time even further).
HOW TO STUDY SMARTER, NOT HARDER
It's important to use effective study techniques. As we’ve discussed in many of our other blog posts, active reading, spaced repetition, mind mapping, creating notes, tables, diagrams, mnemonics, and practice questions are all effective ways to retain information and prepare for exams.
DO YOU SAY YES TOO MUCH?
You need to learn to say no as a law student, you will have so many opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities, social events, and networking opportunities… but it's important to remember that you can't do everything. Practice saying no to activities that are not essential to either your studies or your enjoyment. If you are doing something just to make other people happy, you probably need to think twice before you are committing your limited time to it!
Learning to know whether you have time to complete a task or activity will be really helpful in your future law career too. Whilst you obviously can’t say no to work, learning to flag when you are at full capacity will demonstrate to your team that you are taking on responsibility for your work and being realistic about your output.