Time Management Tips for Coding Bootcamp Students

4 min read5 days ago

The following is written by Careers in Code’s career coach, Laura Thorne.

If there was ever a time in your life when there wasn’t enough time, participating in a coding bootcamp is going to be it! If you’re like many of our students, you’re not just enrolled in bootcamp with classes four nights a week; you’ve also got a job, maybe two, and you might have kids to make sure get to the bus on time as well. With all these responsibilities and the promise of transforming your career in a few short months, the pressure to absorb vast amounts of information quickly can be overwhelming. Effective time management is crucial to success in such an intense program. In this article, we’ll share some strategies to help you navigate your bootcamp experience with confidence and efficiency.

Prioritize Tasks

Not all tasks are created equal. Some assignments will take more time and effort, while others are lessons that are quickly learned or you already know the information. The best way to categorize, I’ve found, is to use the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize your tasks based on urgency and importance. By prioritizing tasks, you can ensure that you are focusing on the most important assignments first and not wasting time on less critical ones. This will help you manage your time effectively and make progress towards your academic goals.

Important and Urgent: Do these tasks immediately.
Important but Not Urgent: Schedule these tasks.
Urgent but Not Important: Delegate these tasks if possible.
Neither Urgent nor Important: Minimize or eliminate these tasks.

Get Organized

Believe it or not, chaos is a time suck. If you are constantly looking for files, a pen, the latest code you wrote, or a resource the instructor mentioned but you didn’t save in the right place, your available time will be reduced in small ways you won’t even notice.

Clean your workspace.
Name files appropriately.
Save files in the right folders with searchable titles.
Keep notes in one place with dates or another searchable format.

Create a Schedule Beyond Class Meeting Times

Create a schedule that includes dedicated study times, breaks, and personal activities. Stick to this routine as closely as possible to build a productive rhythm. An easy way to set a routine is to simply journal every night, look ahead in your course syllabus to see what topics are coming up next, and plan your study schedule accordingly. This will help you stay organized and on track with your studies and keep you focused on one assignment at a time instead of looking at the course as a whole and becoming overwhelmed.

Use Time Management Tools

Leverage technology to stay organized. Tools like Trello, Asana, or even simple to-do list apps can help you manage your assignments and deadlines effectively. Using timers can also aid in maintaining focus and avoiding burnout by breaking study sessions into manageable intervals. There are plenty of ‘study with me’ type videos on YouTube to help those who don’t like to study alone and feel more comfortable body doubling on hard assignments.

Work in Time Blocks

Time blocks are set amounts of time that you add to your schedule/calendar/planner where you’ll work on a specific type of task. You could have an hour set for review, another for practice, and another for career searching. This may seem like a no-brainer, but the opposite is what most of us do. We do 5 minutes of practicing, remember that there is an assignment, jump over to that, open an email with a link to a resource, and start reading that. After 3 hours of work, nothing is completed start to finish. When starting a time block, set a timer and stay on task until it’s finished.

Seek Help When Needed

By all means, try your best to learn by doing and finish coding assignments on your own. However, don’t be so stubborn that you don’t ask for help soon enough, jeopardizing the time available to move on or get more practice. Ask for help when you’re stuck and have tried everything you can think of. Utilize your instructors, peers, and online communities like Stack Overflow or Reddit. Collaboration and seeking assistance can save you time and provide new perspectives on problem-solving.

In summary, you’re likely going to feel overwhelmed, no matter how good your time management skills are. However, with these tips taken care of, you should at least get some time back to dedicate towards additional study or working on your capstone project. What are some time management tips you would recommend? Leave a note in the comments.

Looking for a coding bootcamp? You may be interested in our 24-week, full stack bootcamp. You can learn more and apply for our waitlist here!

Laura Thorne is the Career Coach with Hack Upstate’s Careers in Code program. Careers in Code is a bootcamp for women and minorities. To learn more, go to careersincode.org