Time management for students with spicy brains

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Nobody starts a task planning for the end result to be something mediocre that they finished at the last minute while in a state of panic. So, why does this seem to happen so often? As I wrap up another semester of lecturing in higher education, I wanted to share some insights into the end-of-semester scramble—including some lessons I’ve learned from wrangling my own neurospicy brain.

Most students want to do well. They start the semester with a glimmer in their eye and hope in their heart. But by the time the last few weeks of semester roll around, there are so many projects and essays and presentations due at once that they are zombie-walking into my classroom after yet another all-nighter, apologising for submitting something late or that they know isn’t their best work (or both).

It might be easy to look at these students and wonder if they just don’t care: their time management is bad, their prioritisation is wrong, and maybe they’re just lazy. But I remember when I was an undergraduate student and I often got stuck in a similar loop. It was never that I didn’t care—I cared deeply, and I know many of my students do too. So, what’s going on here?

This might not be the case for everyone but, for me, it was a cocktail of neurodivergence and mental illness. Or, rather, it was that I was still too young and inexperienced to understand my brain and know how to manage it.

A little context

When I was at school, I was known for being organised. I had a meticulous school diary filled with assessment due dates and relevant events. My class notes were colour-coded and my assignments were always done on time. Even when I started university, things felt okay; I did my first units while still at school, so the structure and routine carried across easily enough.

My struggles really came when I first moved out of home. Suddenly, I was dealing with full-time university, two part-time jobs, a relationship, housework, health issues, and a degree of freedom that I was not prepared for. I was finally free to “do whatever I wanted” but I quickly realised that that could lead to me ignoring my uni work, only to finish it in a rush while drowning in stress and disappointment.

I cared about my studies. I cared about learning new things, getting good marks, and being proud of the work I was producing. But caring didn’t automatically create structure, planning, prioritisation, executive function, good communication skills, and a decent memory. In my late teens and early twenties, I probably looked exactly like the students I’m teaching now.

Over the last decade, I’ve been self-directed enough to finish a doctorate. I worked as a producer on one of the biggest games in the world and coordinated schedules for hundreds of developers. That’s not something I would’ve thought was possible when I was still an undergrad struggling to keep my deadlines.

I still have the same brain that I always did. What’s changed is that I’m more aware of how I think and what I need, and I have built strategies that work for me (most of the time).

What is “time management” anyway?

“These students need to get better at time management.”

This is a sentence I hear almost weekly—sometimes from my own mouth. But what does that really mean?

You generally know if you haven’t managed your time well; the all-nighters, late submissions, and general feelings of guilt and shame are the giveaways. The challenge is that you don’t necessarily know what to do about it.

“Time management” is the visible manifestation of lots of underlying mechanisms:

• It’s hard to estimate tasks you’ve never done before

• It’s hard to get started on a task (especially if you struggle with executive function)

• It’s hard to remember things, even when you really care about them (especially if you’re neurodivergent)

• It’s hard to manage competing responsibilities (especially if it’s the first time in your life you’ve ever had competing responsibilities)

• It’s easy to get overwhelmed, and feeling overwhelmed can lead to avoidance and shame

• It’s easy to forget that life is full of unexpected interruptions, like illness, family emergencies, personal issues, or burnout

Studying game development introduces all sorts of additional challenges. You’re trying to scope projects without fully understanding how complex asset pipelines and system dynamics can be yet. You’re learning new skills while also learning new software and, on top of all that, you’re often working in teams and navigating group dynamics too.

Thankfully, it’s possible to get better at all of these complex components of time management.

My brain doesn’t work like that

Everyone is different. That means everyone’s brain works a little differently, so no single strategy or approach is going to make sense for everyone.

I said earlier that part of what has helped me is learning “how I think and what I need”. Part of that came from being diagnosed with ADHD and autism in my early 30s. This wasn’t some sort of magical overnight fix, but it did help me articulate what I struggle with a little more easily, to navigate some of the guilt and shame I had always felt about thinking differently, and to give myself permission to use strategies that actually work for me. It’s not flawless—I am still terrible at staying on top of the laundry, for example—but it has helped immensely.

So, if you find that certain tasks feel harder for you than others, that doesn’t mean you’re lazy or broken. But you also only have one brain and you’re stuck with it—you’re going to need to work out how to make it function for you. You don’t need to be stuck in a cycle of procrastination, urgency, panic, and shame—but getting out of that loop is going to take effort, attention, and time.

Here are some of the tricks that I’ve found help me. Some might be useful, some may sound silly, and some will not apply to you. That’s okay! Think of this as a starting point on your own self-discovery journey for figuring out what works.

Trick #1: Start early

Yes, yes, I know. You’ve heard it from every single lecturer: “Don’t leave things to the last minute!” But let me explain what I mean.

Starting something early doesn’t mean finishing it early. Starting might mean:

• creating a document and pasting in the assessment brief or marking criteria

• adding some rough headings and early ideas

• making a checklist so you understand what the task might require from you

• using this document to jot down reminders when your lecturer says something relevant in class

• pasting in some relevant references or links as you find them

There are lots of reasons why this helps. It can:

• capture the initial ‘spark’ of motivation you may feel when you first hear about a new task

• remove the ‘blank page’, giving you something to build on later and reducing your anxiety

• ensure key details and reminders from your teachers are captured so you don’t forget them

• give you a sense of how much work this task will require, which can help with estimation and scoping

• surface confusion or questions early, giving you plenty of time to ask for clarification

Personally, I tend to find my most productive windows are immediately after receiving a new task (because it’s shiny and novel) or immediately before it’s due (because it’s urgent and stressful). Relying on deadline urgency always feels worse and produces work that I’m less proud of, so over time I’ve tried to take advantage of that early window more. What this means in practice is that, whenever I’m given a new task, I let myself take at least ten minutes to jot down initial ideas and vibes for that task—even if I have other more important or urgent things to do first. This always helps me when I get back to that task in a few days (or weeks… or months…) because it helps me recapture that initial energy and motivation.

Pay attention to when you feel the most motivated and try to leverage that to your advantage!

Trick #2: Become best friends with your future self

Even when you know starting early is a good idea, it can be hard to motivate yourself to actually do it. I’ve found it helpful to think about my ‘future self’ and what will help her feel calm, prepared, and in control rather than anxious, guilty, or overwhelmed. The act of explicitly considering my ‘future self’ can sometimes motivate me because I’m not just doing a task for me, I’m doing it for her (who is also me).

As a practical example, sometimes, “I have to do the dishes,” can be extremely unmotivating but, “I’m going to do the dishes so future-me has a clean kitchen to come home to after work,” is surprisingly effective.

The same can apply to assessments. Think about the times when you could say, “Future-me is going to be so glad that I wrote out this rough essay structure now!” or “I’m going to leave a sentence at the bottom of this document to remind future-me what I was going to do next.” Try to make your future self happy by doing a little something for them now.

Trick #3: Put the next step in your way

Sometimes a whole task can feel huge and overwhelming, but the next step can feel a lot more manageable. Doing that next step—however small—can be enough to trick your brain into doing step two, and then step three…

For example, sometimes I like to sew and repair my clothes, but this task can feel quite daunting if there are a few items on the to-do list. But if I just do step one—get out the sewing box and put it on the coffee table—then I find myself often starting step two before the day is over.

You can do the same with work tasks. Opening a notebook to a relevant page and putting it somewhere you can see it, or opening the right file on your computer and putting it digitally in your way, can sometimes be enough to unstick you.

Trick #4: Practise estimating

To put the ‘next step’ in front of you, you need to know what that ‘next step’ is. Breaking tasks down into smaller pieces is an incredibly important skill—and it’s especially important for game developers. It’s difficult to scope and estimate effectively if you can’t break a task down into its component parts. For more about estimating game development tasks, you can read this guide on how emerging devs can get better at estimating.

Why do we estimate? Simply put, to know if you are on track with a task, you need to know how long that task is going to take. You can’t set aside the same amount of time for every assessment and expect that to work; each task will take you a different amount of time based on a multitude of factors:

• What size is the task (words, pages, etc)?

• Do you already understand the topic?

• Do you need to use software you aren’t familiar with?

• How much research is required?

• Do some parts depend on other people?

• What could go wrong and how might it delay you?

In Week 1, it’s easy to look at an assignment due in Week 10 and think you have plenty of time, but if it’s a task that requires you to learn a new skill, ask questions along the way, or write regular diary entries about your progress, then those ten weeks will disappear pretty quickly.

When you ‘start early’, think about all of these potential wrinkles and factor them into your estimations. You should add buffers for unknowns and surprises—and, when you’re just starting out, there are a lot of unknowns! You can use these estimations to prioritise your work better.

If you’re not confident with estimating, practise. How long is it going to take you to make dinner tonight, do you think? Practise breaking this task down into its component parts, estimating how long each will take, and seeing how accurate you are. The more you practise the skill of estimation, the better you’ll get at it in all areas of your life—including your studies.

Trick #5: Create a prioritised to-do list

When we make games using agile production, creating a backlog of prioritised tasks is vital. Similar logic can be applied to other aspects of your life. When prioritising tasks, consider both their importance and their urgency. Tasks that are both important and urgent should be at the top of your list.

Creating and prioritising a to-do list does not mean building a set of rules that you can’t deviate from. Good time management is not about becoming a slave to capitalism who does nothing but work; it’s about having ample time in your schedule for everything that matters—including friends, hobbies, and self-care. Estimating and prioritising can help you clearly see whether taking a night off is going to negatively impact the other tasks on your list, and being able to make that choice confidently always feels better than just crossing your fingers and hoping that you will still have time to get your assessments finished tomorrow.

Trick #6: Find systems that fit your life

When using tools that externalise your estimates, priorities, and to-do lists, it’s important to use systems that actually work for you. There are heaps of options! I’ve tried calendars, handwritten lists, digital dashboards, whiteboards, sticky notes, reminder apps, and everything in between. The specific tools you choose matter less than whether they work for you.

Over the years, I’ve found that I need systems that are:

• low friction (so they don’t feel like hard work to use)

• highly visible (so I don’t forget about them)

• flexible (so they work for multiple commitments and projects at once)

• adjustable (so I can make them feel exciting and novel again without needing to start a whole new system)

• recoverable (so if I don’t open my tools for a few days, I can quickly and easily remember what I was doing)

My current approach has been working for me for three and a half years—which is actually pretty impressive for me! Some of the tools I currently use are:

• Obsidian, which uses markdown files to store notes, tasks, and reminders in a modular environment that can be accessed from anywhere. It’s extremely flexible and powerful, and allows me to set up templates, automations, plugins, and list-sorting systems that make my ‘Daily Note’ a powerful dashboard for planning my day instantly.

• Minical, a minimalistic calendar app with a great widget that I can put on my phone’s homepage. I have multiple calendars, each colour-coded for different purposes (work, personal, appointments, birthdays…) and it displays events from each calendar in a place I can’t miss.

• Bookmark folders and tab groups in my browser that have useful names and allow me to quickly access ‘in progress’ documents from multiple devices.

I’ve learned that if my systems look the same for too long, my brain stops parsing the information and instead starts thinking my sticky notes are part of the decor. If a task has been on my to-do list for more than a week, it will just live there forever. To try to address that, I set myself reminders to refresh my lists often.

I am sharing my exact system with you, not because I think it’s foolproof for every single person, but because it might be useful to see a tangible example of how certain tools can work together. I’ve bounced off many many tools before landing on this approach; each of those ‘failures’ was an important step in learning what works for me.

And honestly, even if you find something that only lasts for six months, if it makes one semester easier for you, that’s still a win!

Trick #7: Communicate before the problem becomes a crisis

When students start falling behind, communication is one of the first casualties. Admitting that you are struggling is very difficult and, in the moment, it can feel easier to avoid acknowledging it rather than updating other people or asking for help. And then, if the problem gets worse, it’s even harder to communicate because now you need to explain the issue and also apologise for not reaching out sooner. It’s a vicious cycle.

Mental health conditions, neurodivergence, and trauma all make this harder still. There are particular issues and triggers that can still paralyse me and make it near-impossible to communicate; I’ve had to develop strategies for overcoming that.

Ultimately, the earlier you communicate, the more options are available; pivoting or rescoping at the beginning of a project is much easier than trying to respond to a crisis later. It’s a difficult barrier to overcome, but it’s an incredibly important one.

Sometimes it can help if you put yourself in the other person’s shoes. For example, if you are working in a team with others, would you rather a teammate be silent or to let you know if they are falling behind? If somebody asked you for help, would you think they are a failure or would you be thankful they are keeping you in the loop? Generally, other people want to help you succeed—but they can only do that if they know what’s going on.

If you are anxious about talking to a peer or your teacher, then seek support and guidance elsewhere. Try student support services, a therapist or doctor, or a mentor you trust. Challenges feel more achievable when you aren’t trying to solve them alone.

Trick #8: Act with intent

Always make intentional choices. This means considering the pros and cons, weighing up the options, and deliberately choosing what you’re going to do. If you’re going to miss class, only half-listen to a lecture because you’re working on something else at the same time, apply for an extension, or submit an assessment late, make sure that you’ve fully considered the potential positive and negative consequences. Sometimes sleeping in can be important because it helps you rest and recover, but it always feels better if you choose to do it deliberately rather than accidentally sleeping through your alarm. Don’t let things just happen to you; choose them.

For example, extensions can be really useful but they can also make a difficult situation harder if they just push bottlenecks further down the road. Before asking for an extension, think about how you’re going to handle the pressure that it places on your other assessments.

Sometimes staying up all night feels like the best choice to get a particular project finished but, before making that decision, consider how it’s going to impact you for the rest of the week. Will it be harder to understand the concepts explained in the lecture tomorrow if you’re exhausted? Is that trade-off worth it?

If you’ve fallen behind, should you panic and work on the next assessment that’s due or should you pause and spend an hour revisiting your to-do lists so you can rescope, prioritise, and estimate? This might feel like ‘wasted time’, but working from a place of confidence rather than anxiety and reactivity can help you make higher quality work more efficiently. Make a conscious choice, don’t just ‘react’.

Final thoughts

Time management, estimation, prioritisation, and communication are all important skills. They don’t just help you with getting better marks or avoiding getting in trouble; they can make you feel more confident in all areas of your life.

It’s nice to get your assessments in on time so you can avoid late penalties. But, more important than that, it’s nice to avoid being in a constant state of panic and anxiety, it’s nice to get enough sleep, and it’s nice to submit work that actually reflects your capabilities.

You are never going to eliminate every bad day: you are going to drop the ball sometimes, you’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to freeze up and fail to communicate, and you’re going to forget and appointment or two. But if you find systems that work for you and your brain, you will feel better, create work that makes you proud, and find more time for genuine relaxation and joy (rather than procrastination and guilt).

The systems you build while you’re studying will stay with you forever. Experiment with how you can build a sustainable creative practice now, while you’re in a safe space to fail and learn.