I've just finished my final year of university and (spoiler alert) I did pretty well so I thought I would share my realistic tips on managing your workload effectively during your degree. I realise this is quite a boring topic but I really do feel like I've learned a lot from my three years at Durham and I really hope I can help other people to do well at university. This could apply across all courses but probably relates best to social science and humanities as that's what I've studied.

a semi-relevant photo of my desk from last year

1. Get organised and plan ahead

This is possibly The Most Important piece of advice I have, but in a way it's also the most obvious. I'm lucky that being organised comes naturally to me but I really cannot stress the value of knowing what's coming and planning for it. At the beginning of each year it's worth sitting down with all the information about your modules and creating a comprehensive list of when all your assignments are due - stick this somewhere important and never be surprised by a deadline. Then break it down term by term. Often deadlines won't come at nice even intervals allowing you to take them as they come and focus on one thing at a time, they might be grouped together instead. In my first term of third year I had 6 deadlines, 5 of which were in the last 3 weeks of term, so I knew I had to plan ahead and divide the term up into sections: I allocated 10 days for each assignment which worked fairly well - sometimes I finished an essay a day or two early, other times something else (e.g. tutorial work) cropped up so I lost a day or two focusing on that.

This especially applies to reading, which can be extremely time consuming compared to the value you get out of it. Realistically university terms are short and you only have limited time so it's best to work out how to use it efficiently and effectively and minimise time wastage - this is linked to the planning ahead part too. Obviously everyone has their own way of working, but there are certain types of assignment or assessment that generally require different amounts or different kinds of work. For example, if you have an unseen exam you're going to need to rely on memory, so it's a good idea to spend some time (ideally throughout the year and not a couple of weeks before the exam) doing key readings and transforming the information you need to know into bitesize chunks which you can then use for revision purposes, such as flash cards. Or, if your module covers a few different topic areas or blocks and you know you're only going to have to engage with one or two for assessment purposes, focus your reading in the area you're planning to cover and don't bother too much with the ones that you won't be assessed on. Basically, you need to work out what you're ultimately going to need to know, prioritise, and adapt your study approach to match - the aim is to avoid doing irrelevant work or spending time reading things you won't use. I'll admit this is kind of depressing because it turns education into a production line rather than learning for the sake of learning, but realistically you can't do everything so it's important to prioritise.

When you do read, try to read with a clear idea of what you want to get out of it. I developed a couple of reading 'modes' depending on why I was reading the thing. I would either read for detail and try to make notes that summarised all the main information without missing out too much, which is a useful strategy to adopt for key texts which you can pretty much guarantee are going to be useful in assessments and exams later down the line. Alternatively I would read for relevance, mostly when I was planning essays with specific topics and trying to find useful sources and citations. In this case it might not important to grasp the detail or even gist of the text, but more helpful to skim the majority and just focus on a section or strand or argument which is going to help your overall point or argument in your essay. Obviously these two might overlap within a single text, but again it helps to be tactical as this way you don't waste time.

This is especially hard for me because I am definitely a perfectionist in most things, but when it comes to university work I am able to be surprisingly realistic. I know a lot of people who typically end up working through the night the day before an essay is due, and will not submit it until they are completely happy with it. Although you obviously shouldn't hand in half-finished assignments, it's important to keep things in perspective and resist the urge to keep fiddling and over-editing an essay if it's going to deprive you of sleep or time that could be better spent. Again, if it's midnight the night before a deadline and you've only written a fraction of the thing, fair enough and needs must, but once the bulk of it is done tinkering around with it into the small hours of the morning is unlikely to have an effect on the mark you'll get. More generally, try to resist perfectionistic impulses in other areas. University is hard work and you'll have ups and downs, so don't beat yourself up when you don't do as well as you might normally or if you get a 'bad' grade. Also, it's easy to compare yourself to others but try to remain focused on your own progress rather than thinking about other people.

My final tip for managing a university workload successfully is to find out what kind of extra support or services your department offers and use it! Every university and department is different but they will all have a system for deadline extensions, disability allowances, concessions etc. It's always a good idea to find this out in advance so that you know how to proceed if you do find yourself in a situation where you need it. Similarly, take advantage of lecturers' office hours to go and see them if you have a question or would like them to explain something further, and especially if you're struggling. It's so much better to find solutions to problems early on before they develop into bigger issues and they are there to help you! There are also other non-academic members of staff who might be able to help you with various things, so it's worth finding out who has what role and what they might be able to do for you.

And those are my tips for surviving your degree! Obviously there are loads more aspects to completing a university degree and I've just focused on the very academic angle here, but I think that if your uni work is going well other things are easier to deal with on the whole.

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