What seem to be your best and worst times of day for
completing tasks that are intellectually intensive (e.g.
working on essays, cracking a tough programming
challenge)?
For how long can you do this kind of intensive work
before you start to feel hungry, highly distractible,
or antsy and in need of a break? Does this interval
lengthen or shorten depending on the time of day?
When do you tend to get hungry? Sleepy? Is there a
particular time of day or a particular weekday when
you tend to feel an urge to skip your classes?
How much reading can you complete in an hour using
active reading strategies?
Are you managing to get regular exercise? How
does physical activity affect your mood and mindset?
Consider both short- and long-term impacts (e.g. two
hours later vs. two days later).
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HARNESSING
HABITS: A
SELF-ANALYSIS
WORKSHEET
Procrastination commonly results from a tendency
to see projects and assignments as tasks that need
to be completed from start to finish in one long sit-
ting. The feeling that each project requires a single
uninterrupted stretch of time leads us to dismiss the
usefulness of the shorter chunks of time that we do
have. Most projects need to be split into smaller steps
and spread out over multiple sittings. In this exercise,
we’ll learn how to use time efficiently by developing a
realistic work routine that invites productivity even (or
especially) when we don’t have entire weeks to dedi-
cate to a single venture.
To complete this exercise, you’ll need a few copies
of the hourly scheduling template provided below, a
monthly calendar, a daily agenda planner, coloured
pens and all of your course syllabi.
1. Getting to know yourself
Using the hourly scheduling template, log your activi-
ties for a full week. Live your life as you normally do. At
the end of the week, take 20 minutes to reflect on the
questions below:
Review your answers and look for common themes.
Now, colour-code your log by flagging your high-
est-quality working hours in green, your lowest-quality
working hours in red, the times you get up and go to
bed in blue, and your best time of day for complet-
ing chores, errands, and passive work in yellow (e.g.
buying groceries, doing laundry, organizing email,
transcribing definitions onto flash cards, paying bills,
photocopying).
2. No matter where you go, there
you are
Print a clean copy of the same scheduling template.
Draw a green border around your optimal working
hours (e.g. late morning, early evening) and a yellow
border around your optimal hours for chores, errands,
and passive work (e.g. early to mid-afternoon). Draw
a blue line across your bedtime. It’s okay to be a bit
vague—these are guidelines, not rules. The idea is
not to wed yourself to this routine, but to map out your
natural tendencies so that you can work with them
rather than against them.
This map represents the ebb and flow of your mental
and physical energy throughout the workweek, and it
hints at why certain tasks can feel easy at some times
and nearly insurmountable at others. You may wish
to pin it up or set it aside as a helpful reference when
you find yourself staying up later than you’d like.
3. You are not a machine
You may notice that your academic commitments don’t align perfectly with your natural rhythms. Try to build
some time into your routine for activities that keep you refreshed, grounded and motivated when the going gets
rough. Contrary to popular belief, it’s even more important to set aside time to care for yourself during deadline
season than during the off season.
In each of the following categories, name at least one activity that you find refreshing, relieving or meaningful.
Feel free to tailor the categories to your personality and tastes.
Physical (e.g.
practicing martial
arts, playing
soccer, attending
a yoga class,
taking walks)
Social (e.g.
having family
dinners, playing
card games with
friends)
Creative (e.g.
drawing, knitting,
tinkering with
a personal
website)
Spiritual (e.g.
attending a
prayer circle,
reading, being
politically active)
Weekly activities
Seasonal Activities and Special
Events
4. Pulling It Together
Open your monthly calendar and take out your
course syllabi.
Record all of your course-related deadlines (es-
say deadlines, midterm dates, exam periods and
so on). For each one, include both the percent-
age it is worth and the course it’s for.
Using a different colour, record other regular
dates and deadlines (e.g. birthdays, medical
checkups, job commitments). Include the sea-
sonal activities and events that you identified in
section 3.
Post your monthly calendar in a prominent spot
in your room. This will allow you to see what’s
coming up well in advance, so you can prepare.
Transcribe the dates and deadlines from your
monthly calendar into your daily agenda planner.
Mark down all of your fixed commitments for the
coming week, such as lectures, tutorials, labs,
volunteer shifts and job shifts.
Refer to the map of natural tendencies that you
created in section 2 and then look ahead to what
projects are due within the next four weeks. With
the assistance of the Assignment C
alculator
,
break those projects down into smaller stages
on a separate piece of paper and then allocate
your most intellectually fruitful hours (the ones
you flagged in green) to these smaller stages
on a daily basis (e.g. every morning from 10:30
a.m. – 12 p.m., you’ll work on a specific step of
a research paper, and at 12 p.m. each day you’ll
break for lunch).
R
epeat this for each upcoming deadline. You
may not have enough “green” hours for all of
your intensive work, but the value of knowing
when they are is that you’ll be less likely to fritter
them away on passive tasks.
Refer again to the map of natural tendencies
that you created in section 2. For the next week,
mark off your projected bedtimes, meal times,
and windows for completing errands, chores and
passive work.
Refer to the wellness activities that you identi-
fied in section 3. Allocate at least two hours to at
least one of those activities in the coming week.
At the end of each day, take a few minutes to
assess what worked well for you and what didn’t
work well. It is always a good idea to prepare
for the following day the night before (e.g. make
your lunch, pack your backpack, charge your
phone) so that you can make the most of your
mornings.
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