Full-time Conservatoire study is a big step up from school or college. You will have lots of wonderful learning opportunities and will want to make the most of them alongside all the other experiences that being a student brings. You may experience a higher workload than before and will be expected to find ways to manage your time.
Time management is a skill that you will already have started developing at school or college. Even if it’s something that doesn’t come easily to you, it can be learned and practiced so that you feel confident is organising when and how you work. Current undergraduate students rate time management as the biggest challenge they faced during their first year. Spending a bit of time now to look at how to improve your time management will help take away some of the stress you may face when studying, particularly at the start.
This short film about Managing a Heavy Workload gives a good overview of the most important things you can do to help use your time effectively.
If you are keen to work on developing time management skills, below are some more resources that you might find helpful. They are aimed more generally at University students (except the NHS one) which can involve more ‘study’ time than a practical degree, but the advice will be useful for planning your time to achieve all the things you need to do:
- Top Universities Time Management Tips – this is useful as a quick reference with 7 tips to help you work effectively. If you don’t have much time this is a quick read!
- The Open University: Time Management Skills – the Open University provides more in-depth information and has lots of ideas to help you manage your time/studies and includes videos and planners.
- Rescue Time: Time Management for Students – this blog has some interesting ideas for how to structure your time and keep motivated and makes good suggestions about understanding how you use your time, and how/when you work most effectively.
- NHS: Easy Time Management Tips – this NHS page offers some simple advice that focuses on helping you feel more organised and in control of your life.
Like with money worries, if you feel like you are not coping with your workload, missing deadlines for submissions of work, or are falling behind in your studies, let you Course Leader know as soon as possible. This gives them the opportunity to understand how you are coping with the work and help get you back on track.
Getting yourself organised for your studies and having a routine that helps you get the work done will mean you have more free time to do the things you enjoy and relax…which is very important too!
Get Ready to Study: Time Management
Visit our resource ‘Get Ready to Study: Time Management’ for more top tips.
