Optimize Your Time

Strategies to manage your time!

Time management can look like a talent, but in reality, it's a skill! But like all skills, you can learn it and practice it and continue to improve.

So time can be managed! How do I start?

  1. Keep your calendar up to date and set challenging but achievable goals when scheduling your time. For example, if you think an application will take you 1 hour, schedule it for 45 minutes with a buffer. This ensures that you don't procrastinate because you have set a clear goal of finishing a task quicker than expected. When you do this, you slowly adjust the way you think and move to a much higher level!
  2. Keep a to-do list on paper or written somewhere! Avoid "keeping it in your head." Chances are you will forget about it and scramble to get it done later!
  3. Try to split big tasks into smaller tasks. For example, instead of scheduling time to "work on a university application" split it into:
    • Review eligibility for application
    • Request transcript from school
    • Fill out application
    • Respond to long answer questions 1-3
    • Respond to long answer questions 4-5
    • Review application
    • Send application

    Going back to tip # 1, you want your goals to be challenging but also achievable, measurable, and specific! This allows you to get things done quicker!

     

How does integrity unlock performance?

One of our core values at GrantMe is integrity, which we define as  “whole, perfect and complete.”

Others may add morality, ethics, or legality to this definition. However, we believe integrity is a separate phenomenon in our world.

Through working with integrity, we can unlock high performance. We break it down like this:

Integrity > Opportunity for Workability > Opportunity for Performance

Integrity itself does not guarantee performance. Rather, it provides you with the highest opportunity for workability and thus performance.

For example, a race car with a flat tire has a dramatically diminished opportunity for performance. Simply working on the integrity of the race car (by filling up the tire to make it "whole, complete, and perfect") will likely improve the performance if only because there is now a larger opportunity for performance.

Many times, we try to improve our performance on the basis of no integrity. This is a losing game because there is a very small opportunity for workability and thus a small opportunity for performance.

Here are some ways we practise integrity at GrantMe that you can use too!

  • Be your word. Do what you say and by when you say you’ll do it. Do what others would expect of you and by when they would expect you to do it. This may mean keeping YOURSELF accountable!
  • Be in communication as soon as you realize that you cannot do what you say you will and by when you said you’d do it. It can be nerve-wracking to say you can't do X task within Y minutes, but the sooner you inform others, the quicker a solution can be made!

In other words:  Plan your work and work your plan.

Remember that integrity takes time to grow and there will be mistakes along the way. When breakdowns happen, simply restore integrity by:

  1. acknowledging the broken agreement,
  2. addressing the impact of the broken agreement,
  3. acknowledging what action you will take to address the impact of the broken agreement, then
  4. putting in place a structure so that it never happens again.

Use these tips to build your own integrity and unlock performance in university, scholarships, and life!