EP 41: How to Integrate the Impact Effort Matrix into Your Study Routine
When you are in a time crunch it can seem like everything is urgent. Maybe you have to get a paper in, you have to clean your house, and you have to study for an exam on Tuesday. All of these tasks seem important and, in a sense, URGENT. In cases like this, it can help to have a tool like the Impact Effort Matrix you help you make decisions about where your focus should be. Join us on Episode 41 for more on how to increase your productivity during crunch time.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Cath Anne: [00:00:00] Hi guys and welcome back to our channel. My name is Cath Anne and this is the Homework Help Show hosted by Homework Help Global.
Cath Anne: [00:00:15] University and college programs are challenging. We all know that we start this semester and we fill out our planners, we make appointments on our phone, and we have the best intentions to do the most with the time that we have. However it comes to the end of the semester and generally we are dealing with a time crunch. Despite our best intentions there is not always enough time to complete all the tasks provided. And today we wanted to provide you for a tool that you can implement into your life in order to manage the time crunch.
Cath Anne: [00:00:55] We’ve all been there chugging coffee at 12 AM, propping yourself up on your desk in class, trying not to fall asleep, and sneaking in a quick nap on the couch. Don’t worry you’re not alone. Sometimes there’s just not enough time to complete every task that you’re assigned. We know that now is a time crunch for some of you guys. So we wanted to jump in and give you a tool that you can implement into your life right away so that you can manage your time a little bit better and set some priorities for this crunch time.
[00:01:29] Now, I wanted to give a shout out to YouTuber and all around awesome guy Thomas Frank for this tool which is called the Impact effort matrix. This is a tool that he developed on his own from another person’s matrix to get tasks done. If you want to check out more of Thomas Frank’s info and some of his awesome content you can check him out on college info geek dot com and also look him up on his YouTube channel. He has all kinds of different information about how to maximize your time in university and college and how to be the best student you can be.
[00:02:08] Let’s dive into the impact effort matrix. When you’re in a time crunch it can seem like everything is urgent. Maybe you have a paper due tomorrow. You have to clean your house and you have to study for an exam on Tuesday. In cases like this it can help to have a tool like the impact effort matrix in order to decide where your efforts should be put and where your attention should be placed. Let’s discuss. In the impact effort matrix tasks are assigned a score dependent on their overall impact for the success of a project as well as the effort it will take to complete that task.
[00:02:47] Let me give you an example so that you can then get an idea of how the impact effort matrix may fit into your life. Pretend you’re working on an assignment a final paper is required for your Psychology 101 class. Your professor would like a research proposal based on potential research that you are going to conduct. But this weekend you also have that project. Your family is celebrating your brother’s birthday which you would like to attend. And you also have an exam to study for that is due on Tuesday. In this case you decide to use the impact effort matrix in order to prioritize your time and the various tasks that you are required to complete. For the research proposal you are required to complete a 3000 word essay composed of all of the components of a research proposal. You know that one of the important components is the research question along with the literature review and the method section. These components of the paper will make up the bulk of the paper. In other words they will make the biggest impact. You know that your professor is focusing on these portions of the paper so you decide to make them priority number one. They will take a high amount of effort and they will have a big impact. So these will fit into a high effort high impact quadrant in the impact effort matrix. Second, you also know that your professor will be looking for appropriate references. You also know that if you don’t include appropriate references you may be accused of plagiarism if you do not say your references properly. You’re familiar with how to do APA format and you know that the references will make a high impact. In this case, adding proper references will make a high impact with a little effort. Your professor has also offered a bonus option of including an interesting podcast portion of the assignment in which you justify your research proposal to a colleague your professor has offered a 5% bonus in addition to the grade that you get on your paper. However you recognize that this would take a lot of effort to implement and to organize. So you choose to opt out of this one.
[00:05:07] When deciding to apply the impact effort matrix there are some components you should consider. They Are the following: What the core deliverables are, the grading criteria for the project and which components count for the highest grade, what percentage of your grade each assignment counts for, how much each component will contribute to the knowledge you have and which will help you do the best on your exam in the future. Now, in order to properly use the impact effort matrix, once you have assigned scores to each of the tasks, then you have to do them of course.
[00:05:41] It is the most important to focus on the highest impact and the highest effort tasks first. Completing the task so it falls into this quadrant first it’s important because you want to use all of your energy to focus on the high impact, high effort tasks first and then you’ll have energy left over to focus on smaller tasks. As we know we are all really busy with school. It can take a lot of energy to focus on a lot of different projects and so we want to make sure that all of our energy is going into the efforts that have the biggest impact.
Cath Anne: [00:06:13] Okay so that’s it for me this week guys. I hope this episode is a benefit. As always if you have any questions leave them in the comments below. If you liked this video make sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel so you don’t miss out on any of our content. If you’re looking to check out any more of our content look at the description box below. All other social media platforms are linked there so that you can gain access to our content into our website and services. Thanks guys again I hope this episode was of benefit. Good luck on your crunch time. Have a great week and take care.
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