I want to talk about time.
Do you feel that you're not getting close to your IELTS, or you are not finding time to prepare for your IELTS because you are too busy doing other things? Maybe this post can help you to align your priorities. When I say ‘time’, I don’t mean managing the reading or managing the writing, what I mean is making time for study. I meet students all the time who say they can't even get started on their IELTS preparation and maybe that is you too.
I often hear, “my work doesn't give me much time, my family commitments don't give me much time”. Sometimes it stops you in your tracks and it makes you almost inert. This kind of inertia, not getting going, not getting started, can manifest itself for many reasons and quite often it's not necessarily just to do with time. I think we all know that, because during COVID, many, many of us had plans to start new things, learn a new language, learn a new skill, watch online theatre, etc. There were many, many things that were available to us and we had endless time because most of us were stuck at home, unable to go out. And yet, if you put your hand on your heart, how many of those things that you thought you could do did you actually achieve? I think everybody had that experience during the pandemic. So, the fact that time is not what is stopping you has been proven.
We have a saying, if you want something done, give it to a busy person. That saying, I think, is true in many scenarios. In the workplace, it is often the case that the people who achieve things, the people that get things done, are the people that are always busy, that always have quite a lot to do, but somehow, they manage to organise things so that they can get everything done. Therefore, it all comes down to an individual character. I want to look at three areas that might be stopping you and which contribute to your “I haven't got time”.
The first reason is, how committed are you? How important is it for you to get your IELTS? In my experience, those people who are really committed will make the time to do it because it's a priority.
I am learning to play the piano now. When I started learning, it was a priority to become much better than I am. But over time, I know that there are many days when I just almost can't be bothered to practise because it's not such a priority. It isn't something that I have to do right now that I have to achieve, actually ever. I'm not going to be a concert pianist. It's more something that I do for myself. There isn't a priority there, therefore, my commitment to the piano is rather less than it might be if I were going to take a piano exam.
I have students who often cancel their lessons due to work and family commitments, but then I have other students who have the same work commitments and the same family commitments, but they never cancel their lessons and they always do their homework because in a sense, they are more committed to the cause, more committed to getting their IELTS as soon as they can. I'm not judging, I'm not saying that one person is any better than the other, but for some people the commitment to the IELTS is a priority, perhaps because they have a deadline, perhaps because they've already booked their test. Whereas for those people who don't have such a commitment, maybe it's not a really big priority.
Think to yourself how much of a priority is it and how committed are you to getting it done? This could be feeding into you not having any time because you can do it tomorrow or you can do it next week, next month or next year.
The second reason why you might not be finding time to prepare your IELTS or work on your IELTS is that it's too open ended. I always think it is a mistake to book a test before you know you are ready. I would always advise not to book a test until you know you're almost ready to get the score that you want. However, on the other side of the coin, there are people that never book their test or never set themselves a deadline.
You can set yourself a deadline without booking the test. You can say, you want to be ready for it in December, with an idea that you'll book your test for January. If you set yourself a firm deadline, then it will give you a reason to really commit to the study and the preparation. If it is too open-ended, “I'll do it when I'm ready”, it might mean a few months, it might mean a few years, it might mean never! So, it is a good idea, if you want to get this done, to have some sense of when you want it done - give yourself that deadline. That doesn't mean book the test. It means plan to be ready by a certain time. Try to have some sort of deadline, even if it's just your personal deadline. In this way you will be more inclined to make the time to actually do the work and then manage the rest of your life, your work commitments, your family commitments, so you can fit in some IELTS study time.
I’ve often talked about how you can arrange your study so that it's not too onerous. You can just do half an hour a day or an hour three times a week which you can fit around the other parts of your life.
The third reason why people say they haven't got time, they can't make the time, there isn't enough time, is because frankly, it is too overwhelming. That can be the case if you are just starting out with IELTS and you try to do everything, listening, reading, writing, speaking, grammar, vocabulary etc. It can easily feel overwhelming and that is a really key reason for putting it off.
In my experience of teaching, not just IELTS, but teaching generally, I know that a lot of students just get overwhelmed and the best way to deal with overwhelm is to put your head firmly in the sand like an ostrich. Then you don't have to think about it, you don't have to address it, you don't have to do it! If your reason for saying “I haven't got any time” is that you feel overwhelmed, then you need to break down the task. You need to do small chunks, bitesize pieces, and that means don't be in a hurry to do everything at once. Maybe you could do 15 minutes of listening today. Just do the first section of the listening, or the first reading passage. Don't try and do all of it - just start by writing an introduction for your writing and then learn three new words and check two grammar items - that would be a good week's work. Also, if you are overwhelmed and you're finding it too much, then set your deadline further away. Don't set your deadline in December, set your deadline maybe for March or April, which gives you more time. Do those few tasks each week and you'll find that by December you've actually made a lot of progress and you'll feel less overwhelmed and you'll feel closer to your target.
Just to recap, if you are saying I haven't got time for study, we know it's probably not really to do with the time.
- Are you really committed to this? Is it that important? And think about how important it is. If it isn't, then do you really need to do it now? Can you put it off and do it next year or the year after?
- Is your IELTS study just too open-ended? Have you set yourself even a personal deadline? Because if you haven't got a time, then you're not going to really rush to do it. Set a personal deadline to keep you motivated.
- Or are you just too overwhelmed by what you have to do? If so, break it down. Do a little bit each day and set your deadline further into the future.
And if you need help with any or all of this then contact me and we’ll get together and work out a plan for you to get IELTS done without any fuss.