Struggling with Time Management? Try Time Blocking!
Written by Emilie Waggoner, Director of Student Transitions and doctoral student in the School of Education and Human Development.
Feb 14, 2025
Whether you are a senior, a first-year student, or a professor, we are all constantly looking to find ways to more effectively manage our time. From research projects to work shifts to writing papers and more, managing your time is a top skill needed for success in college and beyond.
If one of your New Year's resolutions was to improve your time management, we have a recommendation for you! This recommendation comes from my years of experience working full-time, completing research work, and getting through multiple degree programs. Currently, I am a full-time staff member at CU Denver and a full-time doctoral student in the School of Education and Human Development at CU Denver. As I approach my final year of coursework, I'm planning on setting my semester up in a format that has allowed me to successfully finish my undergraduate and my two graduate degrees with no late work—time blocking.
What is Time Blocking?
Time blocking is a time management method that relies on not just blocking off time to study or work, but proactively blocking off reoccurring time in advance of a due date and intentionally stating what you will be working on during that time block. Time blocking requires some focused work at the beginning of the semester, but if you spend 1-2 hours on this once, you will have your entire semester schedule lined up for future you.
How Do I Get Started?
Below are some steps to completing your Spring 2025 time block:
- Take out/print off/pull up all of your Spring 2025 course syllabi
- You can typically find these in your Canvas courses, or your professor may pass these out in-person on your first day of class
- Go through each syllabus and highlight all of the due dates for your assignments
- These include: weekly assignments, quizzes, readings, tests, papers, and projects
- Once you’ve highlighted all of your due dates, create a master list (either in a Word or Google doc, spreadsheet, etc) of each assignment and its due date for each class
- On the document, you will then back-track your “Working Start Date” 10 days prior to the due date of the assignment
- For larger assignments, such as research papers or final projects, we recommend starting work on those at least 15 days prior to the due date
An example of how you can set up this document can be found below:
Class Assignment Due Date Working Start Date Completed MATH 1060 Quiz #1 January 31st January 21st Yes ENGL 1020 Paper #1 February 20th February 10th In Progress Once you have created this table, pull up your weekly schedule. When do you have class? Work? Commuting time? Family obligations? Block that off on your calendar/planner and make it a reoccurring time each week for the semester.
- Block off your time that you plan to dedicate to studying each week while you are doing this, and set that up to be a reoccurring time as well.
- As a reminder, it’s recommended that for each hour you are in class during the week, you reserve one hour outside of class to study. For example – if you are in class for nine hours each week, you should reserve at least nine hours a week outside of class to study or do homework.
- Once you have created your time blocks on your calendar/planner, go into your study blocks that fall during your planned "Working Start" dates for your assignments and update those study blocks with what you will be working on each day.
- Example: For you ENGL 1020 paper, if you plan to start working on it on February 10th, and you have time to study blocked off every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to study from 1pm-4pm, you could block off 30 minutes during those times to work on your ENGL 1020 paper between Feb. 10th and 20th.
- Once you’ve updated your weekly reoccurring study times to showcase what you will be working on each time, your calendar is set!
You can find an example of what time blocking can look like below. This screenshot shows one of my days from this fall semester, where I had already blocked off time to not only complete my literature review for one of my research projects, but I had also preemptively blocked off time to work out, work on an additional equity research project, and complete my readings for my class. All of these events had been pre-planned at the start of the fall semester, meaning all I had to do was glance at my calendar notes to understand what I was working on during these times:
How Does This Help Me?
By blocking off your time at the beginning of the semester, you no longer have to sit down and wonder, "what’s due this week?". Time blocking allows you to sit down during your designated study time and already have a list on exactly what you are working on and how much time you need to work on it.
In addition, time blocking gives you more room in your life for when things come up. Maybe you get sick on February 15th and you don’t feel like working on your paper for three days. If you started working on that paper back on February 10th, you might be decently far along on the paper and may only need one or two more days to finish it before it's due, so you don’t have to stress about it when you’re sick. On the other hand, if you didn't plan your work out and you decided to wait until the last minute to work on your paper, you might be even more stressed, your work won't be your best, and you might have to ask for a major extension or take points off for turning in the paper late.
What If I Need More Time Management Help?
The Department of Student Transitions highly recommends checking out our Peer Advocate Leader events for any upcoming study session or time management presentations, and we also recommend visiting the Learning Resource Center’s website for upcoming events around time management, or to set up a free one-on-one coaching appointment to get tailored help on what you need to be successful in managing your time this semester!