Why Every Student Should Be Time Tracking
Using Toggl To Earn Exam Success
I have found success at University by ‘treating my studying like I’m self-employed’.
By success, I don’t mean academic success alone. I always have done well at University, but certainly not ranked Top-10 in the Engineering school.
In this case, I define success as a mix of:
1. Taking on useful knowledge that with aid in my career
2. Actually understanding, not merely remembering
3. Having time for other useful activities
4. Being competitive in a sport
5. Not feeling like I am living in the library
6. Building discipline and the ability to self-motivate
One of the tools I use to do this, is time-tracking.
Building discipline
One of my favourite articles on this says:
“Screw motivation, what you need is discipline”
Motivation is a weird concept. Isn’t it strange that we think we need to feel like doing something before we can get and do it?
“A child does what they feel like doing, an adult understands what they need to be doing”
Now we’re agreed that we need discipline to get stuff done, we can tackle how to do that.
Discipline takes time to build and requires practice. The thing that works for me is modifying my environment to tell my brain that it’s time to be productive.
- This starts with me sitting at my desk and switch to a separate Desktop on my Mac (using the Spaces feature in macOS), this removes all distractions and gives me a blank slate to work from.
- I listen to Low-Fi Beats on Spotify and keep this music only for when I’m working.
- I then initiate my secret weapon. Starting a timer on Toggl.
Toggl is a timer app that tracks time by starting and stopping timers. You can name these, tag them and log them against a given project.
Starting the timer gives me a sense of ‘right, it’s go-time’ that I never found by sitting down and trying to force myself to work. If I don’t start working well, I feel like I’m lying to myself — which adds to the motivation to get working.
Understand how long a task really takes
Humans are not good at estimating how long something will take. You know this if you ask someone how long it will take them to get ready or how long until dinner.
They say 5 minutes. You don’t believe it for a second and triple that estimate.
That’s something you do to yourself when planning work. You are lying to yourself, on an hourly basis.
Time tracking allows you to collect data on the tasks you do most, giving an accurate picture of how long they take. For me, this was most beneficial when planning revision.
After results, it allowed me to understand the relationship between the number of hours of revision for a subject and the grade I attained in the exam.
This gave a convincing positive correlation. More revision, more marks. Clear as day.
Huge insights can come from this data. I was able to say that over 45 hours of revision, gave me a significant probability of achieving a First in that exam. I knew that from that 8 exams worth of data I had.
Data-driven revision planning
The insight of roughly how much revision leads to what grade, allows more effective planning. You can schedule your day more effectively. For me, this was based on 6 hours of effective revision each day.
I also have the tendency, when leading up to a group of exams, to subconsciously favour the first exam with more revision time. Regularly checking the timers allows you to keep this in check and maintain optimum time for each exam.
It’s such a good feeling knowing what you need to do to achieve the grades you want. You know that you need to hit your target for the day, then you’re done.
Allowing yourself to clock-out
Most students experience burn-out in exam season. Hitting the point where you feel like you can’t do any more.
Childline says that counselling sessions increase by 51% in exam season with students experiencing a steep rise in stress. The National Union for Teachers recommends setting more short-term, achievable goals.
This is where this data-driven planning comes in. Because you have the data, you trust it. Giving you trust in your planning and feeling okay about hitting the couch when you’ve completed your target for the day.
I attribute my ability to enjoy revision and feel reduced stress to this method. I know if I stick to the plan, it will all work out.
One thing I see a lot in the students around me is the lie they tell themselves after a day at the library. They feel that because they spend 8, 9 or 10 hours at the library that day, that they have been effectively revising.
This may be true, but take one look at them in there and you know they haven’t got nearly as many hours of work done as hours inside the building.
Tracking my time in this situation has taught me:
You’re only effective for about 70% of the time you think you are
So clearly the time you track needs to be effective time revising, not the total time of the revision session.
Here are some rules to do this right:
- If you find your concentration fading, turn off the timer and take a break. Come back afterwards.
- Don’t clock-watch. Don’t have the timer visible, go until you start running out of steam
- Have a timer for time outside, see that as a target as well as the revision timers.
- Intentional breaks are good, un-intentional breaks are useless. Save the aimless phone time for a break.
Making the most of your time
Half the reason we are at university in the first place is to gain friends, enjoy yourself and learn more about the world.
Use your breaks to do this. Don’t feel bad about going and having time with friends of an evening. If you’ve done your daily target, you’re free.
Use your time for the stuff you enjoy, not wasting it in the library under the illusion you’re being productive.
Cortex is a brilliant podcast that elaborates on the benefits of time-tracking and how to weave it into a busy professional and personal life.
