Time management

RN403, BSN, RN · Aug 8, 2014

You should spend as much time studying as you feel comfortable. If you feel better with more frequent shorter study sessions, say, 1-2 hours a day more often during the week then you might do that. If you feel better with longer study sessions where you might have a day off designated to spend with friends/hobbies then you might do that. It's really what you feel works for you in order to keep your grades straight.

As far as working out, of course you can make the time for that. I am a huge advocate for exercise and I feel that it is a great way to de-stress (which you will need during nursing school) and also you might bring your notes with you to the gym which would allow you to kill two birds with one stone.

Always aim to get a good night's rest. It might not happen, quite honestly, every night as some days are busier than others; but you should at least aim to get a good night's rest on exam nights. You might sleep well and then wake up a little earlier to get those "one last things" in prior to your exam.

You have to find that balance between studying and being with friends. Some weeks you might have more time for other things besides school and some weeks you will be lucky enough if you have a minute to sit down and breathe. Once you start school you will find your balance.

Nursing school (and pre-nursing) requires time, dedication, and hard-work but it is very do-able. Many of us had lives outside of school. Again, you just have to find that balance. You will get into your rhythm once you start school. You will find how many hours you need to study, how long you have to work-out, and how much time you can spend doing other things. Just remember to put your studies first and the rest will follow. I wish you the very best in your program, you will find your own way to navigate through this journey once you get started.

Larry3373 · Aug 8, 2014

Here is an interesting article written from the Christian perspective regarding this subject. This has been helpful to me and I hope is a blessing to you!

HomeQ & A

Priorities and Productivity

#52

April 14, 2008

Priorities and Productivity

Dr. Craig,

Your productivity suggests you have the energy of five men. Are there some practical tips you can give a young Christian philosopher who is trying to be as productive as you? How do you study and write so productively, as well as attend to your wife? Where do you find the time?

Anon

With the 52nd Question of the Week we arrive at the one-year anniversary of the launch of our Reasonable Faith website. What a marvelous experience it has been! The remarkable variety of features on the site and the freshness of the materials featured here each week have helped to make the site a dream come true for me. We have been so encouraged by the constantly mounting number of unique visitors every month from across the globe, as well as by the many e-mails and letters expressing how a podcast or an article or a debate or a book has been a help to someone.

As we reflect on our first anniversary, I thought it appropriate to step back and take a more personal question this week. I’m flattered by the question, but I do think it also raises some serious issues.

The question reminds us that as Christian thinkers we must lead a life that balances our ministry with our personal commitments (not to mention our spiritual life!). If we throw ourselves into our work to the neglect of our families, then we may wind up very productive but divorced (or miserable), bringing shame upon Christ’s name and injury to those whom God has entrusted to us to love and protect. So the question concerns both priorities and productivity. There’s much to be said here, but let me make a few practical suggestions that have been of help to me.

1. Set Priorities. With all there is to do, we must begin by having a clear sense of our priorities. These will determine how we allot our time and energy. The top priority will be our personal walk with God. This will include time spent alone with Him as well as time for corporate worship and service in a local church. Jan and I observe the sabbath principle of setting one day aside each week for worship and rest, and so I do not study on Sundays. My second priority is Jan and our children. When Jan and I first embarked on graduate study in seminary, I told her that if the strain ever became too much or she was feeling neglected, she had but to say the word and I would drop out of school. She knew I meant it, and that gave her strength to endure the stress of my graduate studies. I also made the pledge to her that I would not study evenings or weekends; that time would be hers. Keeping that commitment to her (which I still observe) impelled me to early morning rising and a very disciplined daily schedule, as you might imagine! God has honored that commitment. I have a wife who would go to the ends of the earth for me (and has!). A scholar who is happily married will naturally be more productive than one who is miserable and depressed. As the Bible says, “He who loves his wife loves himself” (Eph. 5. 28). Truer words were never spoken!

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/priorities-and-productivity#ixzz39lQfaYHd

akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P · Aug 8, 2014

7:08 pm by humboldt13
16 credit hours (A&P, CNA, Eng II, Med term)
15-20 hours of work
7 hours of commuting
How many hours should I spend studying?
How many hours can I spend cycling/running/working out?
How many hours should I sleep?
How much time do I have for hobbies and friends?

I assume that these are weekly hours...

Remember that as a rule of thumb, they suggest 3 hours of study for each hour you're in class. This is only a rule of thumb... because some people are able to study very efficiently and do not require the same amount of time as others to absorb the material that is presented in class and as "homework." Study as much as you feel comfortable and that you can retain the material that is presented.

Essentially you have 4 main time-sucking things that you will have to balance: actual class time (include commute), study time, work time (include commute), and sleep time. I normally don't recommend getting less than 6 hours of sleep per night, unless you're already very acclimated to it. Sleep deprivation has a very poor effect on memory and performance.

I suggest you take a daily planner and block out your time needed for all those events you indicated. Then figure out when you can fit in meals and your social activities. This actually isn't a difficult task, but the hardest thing to determine is how much time you'll need for studying. If you've been a college student before or have been relatively diligent in your HS studies, you should have some idea how much studying you need to do for each hour of class.

When I returned to school, I found that I needed a lot less time than I did previously because I already had much of the knowledge, so the vast majority of the coursework was a review of what I had previously learned. Consequently, when I began nursing school, I found that I still needed less time than some of my peers because I was building upon previously gained knowledge and yet I still did a fair amount of reading and studying throughout school. What made things very different was that I had to repeat coursework in nursing school (I had great grades throughout) and I became even more knowledgeable in the didactic sense and much stronger clinically, so my study time went down dramatically. During my last Semester, I found that my study time was about the same as the amount of time I spent in class. I did quite well still. What did complicate things was that I had to work full-time during school.

Why do I use myself as an example? Simply because throughout my own scholastic career, I continually worked on studying more and more efficiently for the way(s) I learn best. So, what used to take up much of my day eventually became a relatively minor part of it and I had some more time available for socializing. Still, given that school and studies took up a good chunk of the day, my family didn't get the amount of attention they were used to getting and some things did have to go by the wayside for a while.

Don't worry too much about this. You'll quickly find your own balance and you'll quickly learn to meet your own needs without too much difficulty. My advice about exercise is this: if you value it as much as you seem to, block out the amount of time you'll need for that too. Consider using some kind of audio player to play back your lectures (if your professors allow recordings) while you exercise.

pmabraham, BSN, RN · Aug 8, 2014

Good day, humboldt13:

16 credit hours (A&P, CNA, Eng II, Med term)

15-20 hours of work

7 hours of commuting

1. How many hours should I spend studying?

Here's how I would break it down with the goal to get an A in each class:

A&P - 18 to 24 hours of study time.

CNA - 9 hours of study time

Eng II - 9 to 12 hours of study time depending on the # of papers that need to be rewritten

Med Terminology - 6 to 9 hours of study time

NOTE: I've found treating core science with lab classes as two separate three credit classes to work out best in terms of planning for study time. I've also found that while the general rule of 3 hours per credit makes sense, since getting A's in your core sciences matter so much, up it to 4 hours per credit hour.

Total: 42 to 54 hours per week of study time.

2. How many hours should I sleep? - That varies per person, but try to get around 8.

The rest of your questions depend on how important is getting into nursing to you. If it matters, SCHOOL will have your up most priority.

Thank you.

P.S. I've found https://allnurses.com/pre-nursing-student/how-get-any-846733.html to be an excellent article and handy for every class I've taken.