Getting Organised for Masters Students

Step by Step Productivity Strategy to thrive in your postgraduate course

Hello Reader,

A Little Bit About Me

I am a semi recent graduate of Heriot-Watt University. I did a Masters in Business Psychology and am tickled to say I was awarded the Patrick Green Psychology Award for best in the class; nothing like tooting my own horn ;). After graduation, I started up my own business, Team Improvus, and I currently teach students, young professionals and startups all things Business Psychology - productivity included.

In this article, I share the method I used in my Masters, and currently teach to my clients, to get organised and maximise productivity. Now, I don’t have a quick fix for you, this approach is a habit I instilled in myself and takes consistent effort.

Know your Vision

To start, we need to know the vision. So, take a wee moment to reflect on the following questions:

Why are you doing this course?
What do you want to get out of it?
What does success in this programme look like to you?

Personally, my vision for my MSc was twofold. Firstly, I wanted to soak in as much learning as I possibly could about Business Psychology. Secondly, I wanted to use my course as a platform to find a job. Understanding the end goal of my Masters gave me focus and motivation, propelling me to learn as much as I could and ensuring I was applying my effort in the right direction.

Semester Organising - Master Task List

The next step in getting organised is to create a Master Task List. The beauty of being a student is that all of our assignments are laid out for us. Our professors provide rubrics and deadlines, which makes it easy to create a central document that incorporates all of our essays, projects, presentations and exams.

Here is an example:

Notes:

Life Admin: You will notice that I include a Life Admin section in my Master Task List. I do this so that I can plan the necessary time in my day / week / month to get those tasks done.
Bitesize Actions: With every class, I do my best to break down the work into bitesize actions. This means my tasks are easy to understand which helps me overcome the procrastination of not knowing where to start.
Prioritise: once I have my Master Task List, I look through the bullet points to prioritise, ensuring I am working in the correct order to get everything completed on time.
Monthly Task List Check-In: although I knew most of my deadlines at the beginning of a semester, I found it was useful to do a monthly check-in to see if anything new came up or if I had missed any details.

Reference the Tasks Regularly

The final step in my organisation strategy is to reference my master task list regularly. There is no point in putting in all this effort to get organised if we don’t use it to guide our work. So, I created a daily plan of action from my task list which kept me focused and productive. Learn how to design your Daily Plan in this post.

Rewards

I soaked in the rewards of this productivity habit throughout my Masters, but especially over the summer when I was writing my dissertation. Knowing my vision and having my Task List gave me the motivation and productivity to truly enjoy being in Edinburgh, the most magical of cities! Every day, I would finish up around 3:00 in the afternoon and then head into the hills or to the Old Town to enjoy the finely tuned buskers and street performers of the Fringe Festival. It was joyous, let me tell ya!

I am envious of all ye students - soak in the delight of this time in your life, it doesn’t last forever.

Happy Doing

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