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Setting priorities and managing your time effectively

Online classes require that you manage your time wisely. Because the course is accessible twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, you might be tempted to procrastinate, telling yourself that the material “will be there tomorrow.” By contrast, if you’re a first-time online learner and are especially nervous about missing some information, you might become obsessive about logging on to your course several times a day when only one check-in is necessary.

One of the best ways to avoid either of these extremes is to create a schedule. As you might with other courses, you can use a personal calendar or planner to mark due dates and establish a plan for completing assignments. Or you might find that your course platform has an online calendar that you can use, adding your own dates and activities to those related to the course.

By following these steps, you can create a schedule that will help you manage assignment deadlines and other time commitments.

First, referring to the syllabus or the calendar that your instructor provides, record the course due dates for major assignments, such as essays, projects, or mid-term and final exams.
Next, add the due dates for shorter assignments that you need to submit, such as discussion posts, quizzes, or short writing assignments.
Finally, with your personal and other academic commitments in mind, set your own personal due dates for these assignments and the smaller steps you need to take to complete them. Your personal due dates might fall on or before the actual course due dates, depending on your obligations.

You can tailor these three scheduling steps to your own needs and planning style; for example, you might make sure that you have all major assignments written in your planner at the beginning of the semester but then plan out your personal deadlines for weekly assignments at the beginning of each week. You could also look ahead to major assignments as they approach, perhaps on a monthly basis, and set your schedule accordingly so that you allow yourself time for each stage of a multistep assignment.

Sample schedule for a research paper