Struggling to meet deadlines?

Do you find yourself constantly rushing assignments? Do you feel like you aren’t in control of your time? Is the workload too big or are you not leaving enough time?

There are a number of reasons why some students don’t meet deadlines. It takes time to adjust to planning your time in University.

The best way to ensure you have enough time is to start from planning from the date your get your assignment brief.

• Examine your brief.
• Is this a topic you are familiar with?
• Is it in a group?
• How long do you have before it is due?
• Have you done an assignment of this nature before? If so, did you run out of time?
• How readily available is the information needed to complete the assignment. Is a lot of it web based or will you have to spend a lot of time in the library?

Now that you have answered these questions, it’s time to plan your assignment strategy.

If it is a topic you are familiar with, gather all your information and see what other information you will need.
Estimate how much research is needed and how long you are going to take to do it.
If it is in a group, allocate everyone’s particular responsibility and give deadlines for each part.
Look at the time you have and stagger your work over this time rather than leaving it all to the end. It reduces stress and improves the quality of your work.
Leave enough time at the end for proof reading, reviewing etc…
Take into account printing/production/rendering time also.

For more information on meet dealines and implementing your schedule look here.