Many students may be aware of the concept of chunking time, but, in my experience at least, few are familiar with the idea and few understand how chunking time can make someone more productive. Chunking time means that a task is being assigned to a designated short segment of time. That task, and only that task, will be addressed during the time. On your schedule, you might write “Work on paper for Comp class” or “plan the surprise party for Dad”. You are not specifying what you will specifically do, other than the work on the paper or plan the party. This is far less specific than “Pick up the children at the end of the school day”.
For some people, scheduling a specific studying behavior seems counter-intuitive.
“Studying”, they have learned, means to block off large segments of time to get a lot of work done. This might work, maybe, perhaps, for young adults on a college campus, but it generally does not work for adult students. Few adults have the luxury of blocking out one- or two-hour segments of time that are devoted to studying. Many students seem to feel that if they cannot do this, they are somehow “lacking” as students.
Balderdash.
Baloney.
Phooey.
Hardly.
In a word, “no”.
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“Chunking” is a technique that many academic coaches and teachers recommend because it improves your productivity.
It is far easier for adult students to find 15 – 30-minute segments of time than it is to find one- or two-hour segments of time. If a student focuses on ONE task, and that is crucial, during that segment, the student can actually learn, and retain, more information, than if the student attempted to do more work in a longer period of time. In a nutshell, chunking time is more productive for most people because they are focused on only one task and are more likely to complete that task, or at least a step in that task.
Now, this will not work with some academic courses. Unless someone is really, really, REALLY good in math, chunking is not recommended for math-related classes. This makes sense. A student will not really get a good sense of a topic if he or she works on one problem, then stops only to work on another problem later. Math courses tend to need larger segments of study time.
Bored with your reading material? Hate to read? Chunking can be a life-saver for you. Most people can focus on even boring material for 15 – 20 minutes. In this case, the student knows that she or he only must focus on the material for a short period of time. The student does not have to read “The WHOLE thing” at one study session. You will find it is easier to study and understand a small section of your reading than if you believe you have to read a much larger section.
“But I am not going to get the entire assignment read!”
I hear your cries. That may be true, but be honest with yourself. If you scheduled an hour or more to read something you do not want to read, how much of that material will you actually digest? Be honest, now.
Not much is the answer you will tell me. Those of you who can concentrate for long periods of time should figure out how to bottle and sell that skill. You would make a fortune once people realized your “fix” works. If I need to do something I do not really want to do, scheduling a large segment of time with the idea that I will “get it all finished at one time” usually does not work. I will guess the same thing happens to you.
You might think that reading the entire assignment is being productive
How productive are you if you close the book and have no idea what you read?
Sure, you can report that you read the entire chapter, but did you remember any of the material? If you had to take a test on that chapter tomorrow, how do you think you would do? Think about a time you did not study for a test. The reason here is irrelevant. You just know you walked into the classroom without having really studied the material.
The small segments can be greater than the whole thing!
On the other hand, you can probably better focus on the reading and learn more of the material if you are only reading a short section or chapter. You can focus on boring material for 15 minutes, can’t you? I am sure you have been in boring meetings for longer than that!!! How many times have you had to focus on a family activity that did not interest you, but you had to pretend you were interested? You can study for 15 – 30 minutes if you know it will help you in your class. It is possible that you have done this elsewhere, perhaps at work. You can decide to use this technique for yourself now.
If you read for 15 – 30 minutes three or four times a week, you may not read the entire assignment, but you will have concentrated on what you have read. You might, perhaps, learn something from the material. Isn’t that a positive? Can you understand how chunking your time over the week makes you more productive than trying to force yourself to do something all in one session?
Have you ever lost points on an assignment because you forgot to do something?
My assignment checklist can help you remember the details.
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It is much easier to find a short segment of study time in your weekly schedule than a long segment of time. Maybe you can read something while you are in the car, at school, waiting to pick up your child while you are in the car circle at your child’s school. Perhaps you are in some form of transit, not driving, but going to or from work. You might have that short time while your child is watching a television show. Most people can get themselves to focus on an activity if they know that they will not have to focus for a long time.
Opt for being productive, not busy.
Think about it.
Would you rather read half the assignment over a few days, and really focus and learn it, or read the entire assignment in one sitting and have no idea what you read? How likely are you to schedule an hour or more to read/study material you do not like?
Given the two options, if you had a pop quiz tomorrow, which technique would be best for you? Do you think you would do better with whatever you digested when you “studied” for an hour, or when you concentrated on three segments of 15 – 20 minutes each?
If you are not convinced you should give chunking a try, let me talk a bit about time. I am going to do some math here; do not worry, this is really basic math and I know you can do this.
Have you tried to schedule some hours on your day off to study? Let’s say, for example, that you plan to have three hours on a Saturday afternoon to “get caught up”. How much of that three hours do you productively use? When I ask students this question, the most common answers are either one hour or one and a half hours.
Now, let’s say you manage to get one fifteen-minute session in every day for a week. How much study time do you get, totally? If you wanted to, or could only, study five days a week, you would have been able to concentrate and study for 1.25 hours!!!
If you manage one 20 minute session for five days, you would have studied about 1.66 hours – just about 1.75 hours.
Can you imagine what your weekly effective study time would be if you could add this to a regular hour or two during the week?
Chunking your time can help you improve your productivity big time. Try it.
This technique can be useful in the workplace. Paul Graham, a millionaire, refers to a similar concept when he discusses Maker’s Time versus Manager’s Time. Mr. Graham’s idea is that people who create and, essentially make things happen, schedule specific times to focus on their craft. Managers, on the other hand, tend to have their time blocked off by others.
Managers have meetings, either individual or group, and mainly have their day/week scheduled by other people. The manager’s assigned goal is to keep the organization functioning.
As a parent, you will find a lot of your time falling into the Manager’s Time, because you are doing things for/with other people. I wonder how much more studying you could get done if you started thinking of that time as Maker’s Time, and as a significant part of your personal plan to achieve your goals?
To read more suggestions about how to improve your time management skills:
How can I add an hour to my day?
Value your own time if you want to stop wasting time.
Worrying does not help and wastes your time.
You can find other posts by clicking on the Learning Topics menu at the top of the page, then scrolling down to find the “Time Management” topic. You might even find something else in the Learning Topics menu that you would like to learn about.
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Have you ever lost points on an assignment because you forgot to do something?
My assignment checklist can help you remember the details.
Check it out! It is FREE!!!!
If you have any questions or comments, please leave me a note.
Valerie
updated 5 August 2021