This article looks at the importance of organisng and managing your time effectively as a student. It explores some of the challenges autistic students can experience in this area, and offers some guidance on how to improve your own time management and organisation.

Many students find organising themselves and managing their time effectively challenging, particularly some autistic students. It’s important to recognise that this difficulty is not due to laziness or a lack of effort. Instead, it may stem from differences in how an autistic person processes information or conceptualises time, such as finding it hard to judge how long a task may take.

Some (but not all) autistic students may have no trouble with the academic content of their course but struggle to manage the competing demands of being a student. If you tend toward perfectionism, you need to recognise that there may be times when you cannot do everything to a very high standard, so learning to prioritise is essential.

The good news is there is plenty of support available to help you develop your organization and time management skills. Becoming more organised is a process—not something you can learn in a day—but it is a skill you can develop with practice and by trying different strategies. Start with the basics, like a simple daily routine, and build from there.

Getting organised is actually quite a complex process when you consider all that it involves. If you are autistic, you may need to actively understand and develop the skills necessary for organising yourself and managing your time. It may not come naturally, but you can still improve these skills!

Here are some concepts that are helpful to understand:

Organisation: This involves putting a logical structure in place to manage your resources, such as your physical belongings or digital files.

Prioritising: This is the act of deciding how important a task or action is and focusing on tasks in order of their importance, starting with the most crucial ones.

Time Management: This involves allocating your time to different activities. By dedicating specific amounts of time to various tasks, you can use your time more effectively and become more productive. Although it may seem counterintuitive to spend time learning about time management as a student instead of just diving into your work, it is a worthwhile investment.

Perfectionism: While aiming for high marks and good results in your course is generally positive, it’s important to recognise that you cannot expect perfect results. This is especially true in arts and humanities subjects, where marks of 80% or higher are very rare. Remember, you need to achieve passing marks across all your modules, so focusing excessively on one assignment at the expense of another is not wise. You may find one assignment more enjoyable and spend more time on it, which is fine. However, completely ignoring one assignment to perfect another is not.

Procrastination: This is the tendency to delay tasks until the last minute, even when you want or need to do them. Procrastination is not laziness. It can make you feel anxious and guilty, which in turn makes you more likely to avoid the task, continuing the cycle of procrastination.

Understanding and addressing these concepts can help you improve your organisational and time management skills.

Start Simple

Keep track of your daily and weekly tasks. Simplify these tasks and approach them consistently to form habits. This will require less time and mental energy, freeing up resources for irregular or one-off tasks.

Creating a Routine

Establishing a realistic routine can help you feel more in control. Include non-study activities such as meals, exercise, leisure time, and rest.

Ask a friend or family member to review your timetable. Do they think it covers everything and is realistic? Remember, you cannot work every hour of every day—taking time to rest and relax will make your work and study sessions more effective.

Your routine may need to change as your circumstances change, and that’s okay. Adapt it as needed.

Step-by-Step Guide for Organising Your Semester

Step 1: Get an Overview of the Semester

• Use your course manual to gather important information such as the student calendar, assessment and examination breakdown, and course syllabus.

Step 2: Make a Rough Record of the Information

• Record key dates on a semester schedule, including:
  • Exam periods
  • Assignment due dates (presentations, projects, papers, etc.)
  • Holidays and days off
  • Special events you want to attend
• Adjust as needed if you don’t have all the dates initially.

Step 3: Plan Ahead

• Work backward from your exams and due dates to estimate study and preparation time.
• Break larger projects into stages using tools like the UCC Assignment Calculator, which provides a step-by-step guide.
• Regularly check your calendar to stay prepared.

Step 4: Plan Your Weekly/Daily Tasks

• Create a detailed timetable, recording:
  • Class and lab times, including time to preview and review notes
  • Travel times
  • Meal times
  • Regular activities and commitments (employment, sports, childcare, family obligations)
  • Social and relaxation time
  • Buffer time for unexpected events (avoid overpacking your schedule)

Using apps and software to stay organised

• My Study Life can help you stay organised by keeping track of your classes, assignments, and exams all in one place, allowing for easy scheduling and reminders.
• Google Calendar can help you stay organised by providing a visual overview of your daily, weekly, and monthly commitments, with the ability to set reminders and notifications for important events.
• Trello can help you stay organised by allowing you to create boards, lists, and cards to visually manage your tasks and projects, track progress, and collaborate with others.
• Microsoft to Do can help you stay organised by enabling you to create and prioritise task lists, set reminders, and break down larger tasks into manageable steps, ensuring nothing is overlooked.

Avoiding procrastination 

• ‘Eat the frog!’ This may sound bizarre, but it is actually a quote about dealing with procrastination. The ‘frog’ is the difficult task you keep putting off. ‘Eating the frog’ means doing that task first, so you don’t spend the rest of your day worrying about it.

• Another approach is to chose the simplest task on your list and complete that first. This can give you as sense of accomplishment that can be motivating and propel you to complete more of the tasks on your ‘to-do list’.

• It may help to focus on one piece of work at a time, if this works best for you. You may be receiving multiple pieces of work in a short time frame; if it is difficult to work on multiple pieces of work at once, you can talk with your course team about how to balance your work better.

• You can also set a timer for 5, 10 or 15 minutes and commit to working for just that amount of time. Often starting is the most difficult aspect of a task so once you have started you may well keeping working far beyond the initial amount of time. Worst case scenario, if you finish after the set amount of time you will still have more work completed than if you had done nothing at all.

If you are finding it difficult to manage your workload, you may become overwhelmed or stressed. Taking the time and space to decompress can be useful if it’s all getting to be too much. You may have calming mechanisms such as engaging in a favourite activity or something which is physically comforting. These can be meaningful, and you should not feel that you need to stop them, especially during challenging times.

• Weekly Planner Templates
• Weekly Schedule Templates

This article was adapted for use in TUS Athlone from the original article written by UCC