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Trends Biochem Sci. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2022 August 21.
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Published in final edited form as:

Trends Biochem Sci. 2022 April ; 47(4): 279–283. doi:10.1016/j.tibs.2021.12.010.

Time management for STEMM students during the continuing

pandemic
Sandra A. Murray1,7,@, Jamaine Davis2,@, Haysetta D. Shuler3,@, Elsie C. Spencer4,8,@,*,
Antentor Hinton Jr.5,6,8,@,*
1Department of Cell Biology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA
2Department of Biological Sciences, Winston-Salem State University, Winston-Salem, NC 27110,
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USA
3Department of Biochemistry, Cancer Biology, Neuroscience and Pharmacology, Meharry Medical
College, Nashville, TN 37208, USA
4Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
5Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232,
USA
6Hinton and Garza Lopez Family Consulting Company, Iowa City, IA 52246, USA
7First author.
8Co–senior authors.
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Abstract
One of the biggest obstacles to success is a lack of practical time management skills. Here, we
provide suggestions on how to optimize time management.

Introduction
Many factors contribute to the academic success of students in science, technology,
engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM). One important factor is time management, and
lack of time management is a major impediment to student success [1,2]. Multiple articles
discuss effective time management. However, here we focus on the skills that students,
particularly those in STEMM, need to successfully employ to manage their time. STEMM
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students must develop skills that enable them to solve problems, such as the coronavirus
disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the response of those in STEMM research to
address this pandemic and its subsequent vaccine development. For STEMM students to
enter, thrive, and be innovative in their future careers, they must possess excellent time
management skills. We provide methods, resources, and strategies to help students better

*
Correspondence: ecs2221@tc.columbia.edu (E.C. Spencer) and antentor.o.hinton.jr@vanderbilt.edu (A. Hinton).
@Twitter: @murraysister (S.A. Murray); @jscdavis (J. Davis); @PStrengthen (H.D. Shuler); @Elsielacubana (E.C. Spencer);
@phdgprotein86 (A. Hinton Jr.).
Declaration of interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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manage their time, which requires clear goal setting and proper time allocation to complete
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tasks. We begin by discussing goal setting followed by time management. Offering our
combined experience in mentoring and training STEMM students and our time management
skills, we direct our comments to students.

Goal setting
Goals are blueprints for your future that impact success and life satisfaction. To be
successful, setting long-term goals such as career goals (e.g., What do I want to do with my
life?) and short-term goals (e.g., What do I want to do today?) are important steppingstones
to achieving long-term aspirations (Table 1). A career goal should be your own rather than
a path guided by another person’s hopes for you. While this may seem obvious, students
often select goals based on other people’s suggestions. For instance, your mother may want
you to be a physician, or your teacher may see a PhD in your future, while your friends
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may want you to join their career path. They all may have your best interests in mind;
however, if these are not your aspirations, you will be unhappily working toward a dream
that isn’t yours until you finally admit that this is not the career you want to pursue. It is
important to recognize what you want, which requires you to be honest and commit to your
future. Thinking about who you are, what you like, and what makes you happy will help to
clarify your goals. Also, identify careers that you will enjoy that will also provide sufficient
income and opportunities to live well and contribute to society. Introspective goal choices
will help focus your priorities, leading to better time management and success reaching and
succeeding in your future career goals.

Manage your time

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Many students struggle to balance time between academics, work, and other obligations,
which may reflect poor planning and an inability to effectively prioritize time [3,4].
Categorizing tasks and establishing priorities will improve your planning and project
management success and contribute to effective time management.

Often, you are too busy studying and taking care of outside commitments to accomplish
every task on your endless to-do list. At the end of a day, we tend to focus on uncompleted
tasks rather than on completed tasks, which leads to feeling overwhelmed and anxious. If
this occurs daily, it can increase stress and decrease academic and work performance [1].
Stress creates an unproductive cycle that saps your energy and time and compromises your
mental acuity. You can break this cycle by learning to properly manage time instead of
allowing time to manage you. One effective method for managing tasks is the Eisenhower
Matrix (Table 1) [5].
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The Eisenhower Matrix

Successfully managing multiple tasks requires prioritization. The Eisenhower Matrix
prioritizes tasks by categorizing them based on urgency and importance (Figure 1A). Tasks
that are both urgent and important are completed first, while nonurgent and unimportant
tasks are last. As a deadline approaches, a task in one matrix box may need to be moved to
another. For example, washing underwear may be considered neither urgent nor important

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if you have a drawer filled with clean underwear. However, in time, this task becomes both
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urgent and important as you run out of clean underwear.

While some things may be dropped from the matrix, you typically need to work on tasks in
all four matrix boxes. When your energy is low, work on nonurgent or unimportant things.
However, when energy is high, tackle urgent and important tasks. Ideally, work on the
nonurgent but important box, especially if you have many obligations to juggle. One benefit
of completing an important task before it becomes urgent is that there is time to get feedback
from peers and instructors before the deadline. Accomplishing a task and meeting deadlines
requires that you understand what must be done and allocate sufficient time to complete it.

Time allocation and deadlines

Effective time allocation requires that you know when tasks are due. Deadlines serve as a
checkpoint and an effective tool to stay on task, thus preventing you from falling behind
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in project planning and execution. As a deadline approaches, tasks become daunting, and
anxiety may take over. With limited time, planning stops; you rush to complete the task,
cut corners, and overlook details; and inevitably this leads to suboptimal performance and
unsatisfactory results. As the due date approaches, an important/urgent task demands your
attention regardless of your energy or stress level. Ideally, allocate time in advance to ensure
that tasks are completed before becoming urgent. A calendar indicating deadlines and a
to-do list are valuable tools to help allocate time and complete tasks.

Making the to-do list

The common time management to-do list [6] may seem unnecessary when important tasks
are looming as you know they will be easy to remember. However, a to-do list is more than
just a reminder of upcoming events; it also helps you examine and prioritize activities to be
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accomplished before beginning an upcoming task. For example, you may consider whether
to prioritize an extremely important project due in a few weeks or a less important task due
in a few days. Awareness of your tasks also encourages you to categorize them, such as
those necessary for your coursework or job versus those necessary for upkeep of your house
or social life. Such priorities also help you to say no [7] before placing a task on your to-do
list or into a matrix box (see Table 1 for organizational apps and artificial intelligence).

To-do lists allow you to integrate your home, school, and work lives, which will help you
to retain a sense of identity and balance. A to-do list should be specific, defining every task,
and should be reviewed and edited every morning or evening [6]. Breaking to-do list tasks
into smaller subtasks will make it easier to start and complete these projects. Mentors can be
particularly helpful when learning to identify roadblocks to success [8].
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The calendar as a tool

Here we describe tips on calendar use, based on Fiore’s (1980) concept of ‘time mapping’
(Figure 1B) [9]. We suggest using a calendar with 7 days of the week, each day divided into
60-minute time slots. Seeing the entire week and 4 weeks in the month can help you manage
activities and complete assignments with less stress. A feeling that there is infinite time to
complete a task causes procrastination. Therefore, draw a line on the calendar indicating

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the time that you will stop working every day. Sometimes, you will need to work past the
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marked time, but do not make that a habit. Cross out times on the calendar when you will
be unavailable to work on tasks (e.g., class, gym, and mealtimes). Just seeing how much or
little time is available to complete tasks will significantly improve your time management.
Also, add deadlines to your calendar and allow sufficient time to complete important tasks
before they become urgent.

Now that you have the calendar set, add your tasks. But first add some fun stuff! Adding
nonwork personal recreation and social activities to the calendar will encourage you to
complete your important tasks (Figure 1B, green). We suggest three calendar methods that
can be used alone or together to complete tasks: (i) scheduling, (ii) ‘unscheduling,’ and (iii)
logging. For scheduling, identify one to three tasks you want to complete, and add them
to open slots on your calendar (e.g., writing a term paper introduction; Figure 1B, yellow).
Scheduling tasks increases the probability that you will work on them, keep that time slot
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reserved to complete the tasks, and decline other obligations. Unscheduling is the process
of rewarding yourself for completing a task by adding a bright color (Figure 1B, red) on
your calendar. For example, when you write the term paper introduction, add a bright color
to your calendar. Psychologists have shown that seeing a bright color that you like on your
calendar is an incentive that increases the will to continue working. In the third method,
logging, you keep a log of your time to analyze time usage. You might be surprised how
much time you spend chatting, texting, or emailing rather than working. You also might
identify times of the day when you are most productive, which can be used to match tasks to
your energy levels.

Concluding remarks
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Effective time management requires you to identify and analyze your goals, effectively plan
and manage projects, and properly allocate time. Ineffective time management not only
hampers productivity, making it difficult to meet deadlines, but also disrupts your work–life
balance. Work–life balance issues can disrupt your research and cause some trainees to
leave the pipeline [10]. Work–life imbalance can also damage your professional reputation
and increase stress [11]. In contrast, effective time management leads to efficiency and
productivity. The strategies discussed here will help you achieve better planning and
organization, resulting in reduced stress [11], improved judgment, and a better professional
reputation. Being organized, efficient, and meeting deadlines will establish your reputation
as a competent and dependable professional and lead to exciting career opportunities and
advancement.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Heather Beasley for helping make the figure in BioRender. We also thank Kit Neikirk for assistance
with editing and formatting of the paper. This work was supported by the UNCF/BMS EE Just Grant Faculty
Fund, Burroughs Wellcome Fund CASI Award, Burroughs Welcome Fund Ad-hoc Award, NIH SRP Subaward to
5R25HL106365-12 from the NIH PRIDE Program, DK020593, Vanderbilt Diabetes and Research Training Center
for DRTC Alzheimer’s Disease Pilot & Feasibility Program and A.H.J. NSF grant MCB 2011577I and NIH T32
5T32GM133353 to S.A.M.

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References
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Ever, Early to Rise Publishing
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Meaningful Work and Career Success (50th Anniversary ed), Ten Speed Press
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Figure 1. Task priority matrix (A) and calendar (B) as time management tools.
(A) To prioritize the tasks using the matrix, each task should be categorized based on its
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urgency and importance. Tasks that are both urgent and important will need to be done
first. However, try to work on tasks before they are in the urgent and important box.
The use of a calendar will help you keep track of deadlines so that tasks do not become
urgent. (B) Examples of scheduling (yellow timeslots) and unscheduling (red timeslots) are
demonstrated on a calendar that has been set up by graying out slots for times during the
day when you will be unavailable to work on tasks because of other obligations. A line has
been drawn to indicate the time when work will stop every day, and fun activities (green

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timeslots) have been added to increase the probability that you will complete important tasks
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while enjoying a well-balanced life. Use of a calendar to allocate your time can increase
your productivity and the probability of completing tasks and help you to use time rather
than lose time.
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Table 1.

Goal-setting resources

Resource Description Refs

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How to set goals Match what you do to what you want in life [12]
What color is your parachute? Match who you are to careers [13]
Goals: how to get the most out of your life Set goals for balanced life [14]
The art of setting SMART goals Goal setting [15]
Strong interest inventory assessment Match who you are to a career https://www.themyersbriggs.com/en-US/Products-and-Services/Strong
Individual development plan Set future goals and career path https://myidp.sciencecareers.org
Myers-Briggs type indicator Assess your personality type https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/
InterSECT job simulations Real-to-life job simulations https://intersectjobsims.com/library/
What’s holding you back? and Making peace with your Set clear goals, reach and risk failure, believe in yourself! [16,17]
work
Apps
App name Purpose Download
Rescue Time Use (not lose) time https://www.rescuetime.com
Remember the Milk Task management https://www.rememberthemilk.com
Todoist Digital to-do list, helps prioritize, add deadlines https://todoist.com/downloads
Focus Keeper Stop procrastinating and get stuff done https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/focus-keeper-time-management/
id867374917
MindNode Focus and get stuff done https://www.mindnode.com/download
Focus@Will Music and neuroscience to increase focus https://www.focusatwill.com
Forest Grow virtual trees to increase focus and get stuff done https://www.forestapp.cc
Trello Put task on cards and shift cards to get it done https://trello.com/en-GB/platforms

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Quire Work in a team to get stuff done https://quire.io
Evernote Put all reminders in one place to get stuff done https://evernote.com/download
MyLifeOrganized Decide how to get stuff done https://www.mylifeorganized.net/todo-list-windows.shtml
1Password Application for storing passwords to save time https://1password.com/downloads/mac/
Eisenhower Matrix Matrix for prioritizing tasks. https://www.eisenhower.me/
Priority Matrix Matrix for prioritizing tasks when working in a team https://sync.appfluence.com/manage/downloads/
Focus Matrix Prioritize task: focus on the important and drop or delegate the rest https://apps.apple.com/us/app/focus-matrix-task-manager/
id1087284172?mt=12
Pocket Put web stuff in a ‘pocket’ for later and tackle important tasks now https://getpocket.com/en/
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Resource Description Refs

Artificial intelligence
Resource Description
Alexa Echo Devices Personal assistant
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Google Home Personal assistant

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