Advantages of a time-table

The advantages of a time-table are many:

(i) The first advantage is the saving in time and effort. Without it you are likely to spend much time in decision—in making up your mind when and what to study. A lot of energy is uselessly consumed in trying to choose between alternatives and in screwing up your

resolution to work. As William James has it, “There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.”

(ii) The second advantage is the proper use of time. It is ‘fatally easy’ to fritter time away. If you do not impose set hours on yourself, you are more likely to spend the time when you should be studying, in watching T.V., reading a magazine, conversing idly over

cups of tea or in doing any of those hundred and one things which weak and irresolute persons are ready to do rather than buckle to work. If you have a time-table and mean to stick to it, “it has all the force of a law which must be obeyed, and in time adherence to it

becomes effortless, and you begin to regard it as a natural part of your life.”

(iii) The third advantage lies in the saving that comes from intelligent dovetailing of your various activities; in ensuring that you do each work at the best possible time; and eventually in the self confidence and sense of competence which comes from regular daily work. As Anthony Trollope puts it, “A small daily task, if it be done really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.” 

(iv) The fourth advantage is that a time-table is an antidote against procrastination. Procrastination—deferring things from day to day—wastes a lot of time and usually ends in nothing being done at all. Edward Young who coined the famous proverb ‘Procrastina-

tion is the thief of time’, also exhorts, “Be wise today; ’tis madness to defer.”

(v) A time-table makes for efficiency. “A sense of the value of time”, says Arnold  ennett, “that is, of the best way to divide one’s time into one’s various activities—is an essential preliminary to efficient work; it is the only method of avoiding hurry.”

(vi) Finally, a carefully worked out time-table will help you to keep up to date, to form good study habits and to persevere