NR-351 Time Management Plan Assignment Guidelines and Grading Rubric

Assignment Context

Chamberlain University College of Nursing assigns the Time Management Plan in NR-351: Transitions in Professional Nursing during Week 1. The assignment asks each RN-to-BSN learner to build a complete seven-day schedule that accounts for work, sleep, family obligations, and online coursework. Learners also select one Nurse of the Future Nursing Core Competency (NOF NCC) for the Professional Paper that follows later in the course. Chamberlain calls this task an Assignment because it is graded coursework. The university reserves Assessment for clinical evaluation, head-to-toe checks, and standardized testing such as ATI proctored exams. Submit the finished document to the Week 1 Dropbox by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Mountain Time. The assignment carries 175 points in recent course shells, with the percentage weights below matching the standard Chamberlain rubric.

Purpose and Course Outcomes

The assignment gives learners a structured way to examine how professional work, personal life, and online study compete for the same hours. Building the plan forces an honest look at fixed commitments, flexible time, and the habits that erode study blocks. The finished product also establishes a working competency focus for the Professional Paper. The assignment supports these course outcomes.

1. Demonstrate effective written and technological communication using legal and ethical standards for transferring knowledge (CO 3, PO 3).
2. Integrate critical thinking and judgment in professional decision-making in collaboration with faculty and peers (CO 4, PO 4).
3. Apply concepts of professionalism when planning for personal, intellectual, and professional development (CO 5, PO 5).
4. Demonstrate accountability for personal and professional development by assessing information and technology competence and using effective strategies for online student success (CO 9, PO 5).

Assignment Instructions

1. Read the complete Time Management Plan Guidelines and the grading rubric before opening the template.
2. Download the official Time Management Plan Template from the course resources.
3. Rename the file using the convention [Last Name] Time Management Plan.docx. Save it as a .docx file compatible with Microsoft Word 2010 or later.
4. Enter your name and the submission date at the top of the template.
5. Complete the schedule grid for all 24 hours of each day across seven consecutive days. Use at least five categories that clearly describe your activities. Label blocks such as Sleep, Work, Family, Coursework, Commute, Exercise, and Personal Care.
6. Arrange each day in a logical sequence. Blocks of time should reflect realistic transitions and travel. Avoid overlapping activities or unexplained gaps.
7. Write a short statement explaining how New Student Orientation will enhance your success at Chamberlain. Connect the orientation resources to specific study or navigation tasks you will use.
8. Complete the Self-Evaluation: Challenges section. Identify your greatest time management challenges with depth and detail. Brief or vague statements do not meet the rubric.
9. Complete the Self-Evaluation: Strategies section. Explain the specific strategies you will use to overcome each challenge. Tie each strategy to a tool, routine, or support service.
10. Select one NOF NCC from the approved list as the topic of your Professional Paper: Safety, Evidence-Based Practice, Communication, Patient-Centered Care, or Leadership.
11. Proofread the document for grammar, spelling, and professional appearance. The template must remain intact.
12. Submit the saved file as an attachment to the Week 1 Dropbox by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Mountain Time.

Grading Rubric

Criterion	Weight	Points	Performance Standard
Categories Used	20%	20	Uses at least five categories that clearly describe the week’s activities. Additional categories may be added.
Logical Sequence	20%	20	Each day follows a very logical sequence with blocks of time devoted to identifiable activities.
Schedule Completion	20%	20	Schedule covers 24 hours for each of the seven days.
New Student Orientation	10%	10	Statement shows insight into how orientation will enhance success at Chamberlain.
Self-Evaluation: Challenges	10%	10	Statements show insight into personal time management challenges and use depth and detail.
Self-Evaluation: Strategies	10%	10	Statements show insight into strategies for overcoming the identified challenges and use depth and detail.
Professionalism	10%	10	Uses the assigned template. Neat, professional appearance with no errors.
Total	100%	100	Section point values may total 175 in the Canvas shell; percentage weights remain the same.

Sample Answer Excerpt for the Time Management Plan

My week divides into three fixed anchors: three 12-hour shifts at the hospital, two school drop-offs and pickups, and a standing Sunday family dinner. I built the schedule around those anchors instead of pretending they could move. Sleep sits in two blocks, a main overnight block and a shorter pre-shift nap, because a single eight-hour block does not survive a night shift. Coursework occupies Tuesday and Thursday mornings, when the house is quiet, and a shorter review block on Saturday. Commute time appears as its own category so the plan does not hide two hours of driving inside the work block. Research on self-regulated learning strategies shows that environmental structuring and time management are learnable competencies, not fixed traits, which supports treating the schedule as a draft that improves with review (An et al., 2022). The grid now shows where study time actually exists rather than where I wish it existed.

My greatest challenge is protecting study time from the phone and from small errands that expand to fill any open hour. A second challenge is saying no to extra shifts when the calendar already carries a full course load. I plan to silence notifications during Tuesday and Thursday study blocks and to keep a running errand list that waits until Saturday. I will also post my class deadlines on the refrigerator so my family can see when I am unavailable. New Student Orientation matters here because it shows where the library databases, tutoring, and writing support sit inside the course shell. Knowing those locations removes the fifteen-minute hunt that used to break my concentration. I selected Leadership as my NOF NCC topic because charge-nurse decision-making connects directly to the staffing and delegation pressures in my current unit.

Schedule Grid Categories

The sample above works because the categories match the learner’s real obligations instead of borrowing a generic list. Adams and Blair (2019) found that time management behaviors such as goal setting and prioritization predicted stronger academic performance among undergraduates, which suggests the category labels should reflect the tasks a student actually prioritizes. A schedule with five vague categories, such as “stuff” or “other,” gives the rubric nothing to evaluate. Five specific categories, such as Work, Sleep, Family, Coursework, and Commute, give each hour a clear owner. Learners who work rotating shifts may need a sixth category for recovery sleep. The category set should make the week legible at a glance, not decorate the template.

Common Planning Errors

Students often ask why a schedule that looks complete still loses points on logical sequence. The usual problem is overlap, where two activities claim the same hour, or a missing transition, where a 7 a.m. shift begins with no commute block. Another common error is scheduling coursework in a block that the learner never actually uses, such as a Friday evening after a twelve-hour shift. A third error is treating sleep as leftover time rather than a fixed category with its own blocks. The strongest plans show travel, meals, and decompression as real activities. The rubric rewards a plan a reader could follow without guessing.

Competency Linkage and Professional Paper

The NOF NCC selection is not a throwaway line. The competency chosen in Week 1 becomes the organizing concept for the Professional Paper, so the selection should reflect a practice problem the learner can sustain for several weeks. Leadership fits learners who want to examine delegation, staffing, or change management. Safety fits learners who see medication errors or fall prevention as a daily concern. Evidence-Based Practice fits learners who want to connect a unit protocol to current research. Patient-Centered Care and Communication fit learners whose practice focuses on discharge teaching, health literacy, or family conferences. A competency chosen for convenience rather than relevance tends to produce a thin paper later.

Conclusion

A strong Time Management Plan does not prove that the learner has a perfect week. It proves that the learner can see the week honestly and adjust before the course workload exposes the gaps. The schedule grid should show real commitments, real travel, real sleep, and real study blocks. The challenges and strategies sections should name specific habits and specific fixes, not generic promises to “manage time better.” The NOF NCC selection should point toward a practice problem worth several weeks of reading. Learners who build the plan around their actual lives will get more from the Professional Paper that follows. The rubric rewards clarity and honesty, not an idealized calendar that collapses by Week 3.

References

Adams, R. V., & Blair, E. (2019). Impact of time management behaviors on undergraduate engineering students’ performance. SAGE Open, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018824506

An, J., Oh, J., & Park, K. (2022). Self-regulated learning strategies for nursing students: A pilot randomized controlled trial. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(15), 9058. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159058

Kumar, A. P., Omprakash, A., Mani, P. K. C., Swaminathan, N., Maheshkumar, K., Maruthy, K. N., & others. (2024). Exploring self-directed learning readiness and related factors: The role of time management skills in nursing students. BMC Medical Education, 24(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-06032-7

Chamberlain University. (2026). NR-351: Foundational concepts for the practicing RN course catalog. https://catalog.chamberlain.edu

Time Management Plan

Fixed anchors shape the week more than any ideal study block. Three 12-hour hospital shifts, two school drop-offs and pick-ups, and a standing Sunday family dinner sit first on the calendar. Sleep arrives in two distinct blocks, a main overnight stretch and a shorter pre-shift nap, because a single continuous eight-hour period rarely survives night work. Coursework claims the quiet Tuesday and Thursday morning windows plus a shorter Saturday review slot. Commute time receives its own category so the two hours of driving never hide inside the work block. Research on self-regulated learning strategies shows that environmental structuring and time management function as learnable competencies rather than fixed traits, which supports treating the schedule as a living draft that improves with weekly review (An et al., 2022). The finished grid therefore displays where study time actually exists rather than where it is wished to exist.

Schedule Grid

Categories used across the seven days include Sleep, Work, Family, Coursework, Commute, Exercise, and Personal Care. Each day runs from 0000 to 2400 without overlap or unexplained gaps.

Monday
0000–0600 Sleep
0600–0700 Personal Care
0700–0730 Commute
0730–1930 Work (day shift)
1930–2000 Commute
2000–2100 Family (dinner and child check-in)
2100–2200 Coursework (light review)
2200–2400 Sleep

Tuesday
0000–0700 Sleep
0700–0800 Personal Care and Exercise
0800–1200 Coursework (quiet house block)
1200–1300 Family (lunch and school coordination)
1300–1700 Coursework continued
1700–1800 Commute to evening obligations
1800–2000 Family
2000–2100 Personal Care
2100–2400 Sleep

Wednesday
0000–0600 Sleep
0600–0700 Personal Care
0700–0730 Commute
0730–1930 Work
1930–2000 Commute
2000–2100 Family
2100–2200 Exercise
2200–2400 Sleep

Thursday
0000–0700 Sleep
0700–0800 Personal Care
0800–1200 Coursework
1200–1300 Family
1300–1600 Coursework
1600–1700 Exercise
1700–2000 Family and Personal Care
2000–2400 Sleep

Friday
0000–0600 Sleep
0600–0700 Personal Care
0700–0730 Commute
0730–1930 Work
1930–2000 Commute
2000–2100 Family
2100–2300 Personal Care and light Coursework
2300–2400 Sleep

Saturday
0000–0800 Sleep (recovery)
0800–0900 Personal Care
0900–1100 Coursework (review and planning)
1100–1300 Family (errands and activities)
1300–1500 Exercise
1500–1800 Family
1800–2000 Personal Care
2000–2400 Sleep

Sunday
0000–0800 Sleep
0800–1000 Family (breakfast and preparation)
1000–1400 Family (Sunday dinner preparation and gathering)
1400–1600 Coursework (week preview)
1600–1800 Exercise and Personal Care
1800–2000 Family
2000–2400 Sleep

The sequence keeps transitions realistic. Travel time stands alone. Meals and decompression appear as identifiable blocks. Sleep never functions as residual filler.

New Student Orientation

New Student Orientation supplies the exact locations of library databases, tutoring links, and writing support inside the course shell. Knowing those paths removes the fifteen-minute search that previously fractured concentration during limited study windows. Orientation materials also clarify how to post questions in discussion boards and locate assignment rubrics without repeated navigation. These concrete tools convert orientation from a one-time event into a reusable map for protecting the Tuesday and Thursday morning blocks already allocated to coursework.

Self-Evaluation: Challenges

Protecting designated study hours from phone notifications and expanding errands remains the primary difficulty. Open minutes tend to fill with small tasks that stretch beyond their intended length. A second difficulty involves declining additional hospital shifts once the calendar already carries a full course load. Both patterns erode the quiet morning blocks that research links to stronger self-regulated learning outcomes among nursing students (An et al., 2022). Adams and Blair (2019) found that perceived control of time correlated with academic performance; the current schedule therefore treats control as a skill that must be practiced rather than assumed.

Self-Evaluation: Strategies

Notifications stay silenced during the Tuesday and Thursday study windows. A running errand list collects non-urgent tasks and holds them until Saturday. Class deadlines appear on the refrigerator so household members see when uninterrupted time is required. Extra shifts receive a standing decline once the weekly grid is set. These steps convert the identified challenges into concrete routines that preserve the blocks already mapped. Sadeghi et al. (2024) reported that time management skills contribute to self-directed learning readiness among nursing students; the listed actions therefore target that readiness directly.

NOF Nursing Core Competency Selection

Leadership is selected as the focus for the Professional Paper. Charge-nurse decision-making, staffing adjustments, and delegation pressures appear daily on the current unit. The competency supplies a sustained practice problem that can support several weeks of reading and analysis without relying on convenience.

The completed plan does not claim a perfect week. It records real commitments, real travel, real sleep, and real study intervals so that gaps become visible before later course demands expose them. Clarity and honesty meet the rubric criteria more effectively than an idealized calendar that fails by Week 3.

References
Adams, R. V. and Blair, E. (2019) ‘Impact of time management behaviors on undergraduate engineering students’ performance’, SAGE Open, 9(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018824506.

An, J., Oh, J. and Park, K. (2022) ‘Self-regulated learning strategies for nursing students: A pilot randomized controlled trial’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(15), 9058. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159058.

Sadeghi, N., Janatolmakan, M., Rezaeian, S., Rashi, M. and Khatony, A. (2024) ‘Exploring self-directed learning readiness and related factors: the role of time management skills in nursing students’, BMC Medical Education, 24, 1088. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-06083-w.

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Time Management Plan for the RN-to-BSN Transition

NR-351: Transitions in Professional Nursing · Chamberlain University

Introduction

The shift from registered nurse to baccalaureate-prepared professional demands more than clinical expertise. Working nurses must redistribute the same twenty-four hours across twelve-hour shifts, family obligations, online coursework, and the hidden labor of learning digital platforms. Chamberlain University’s NR-351 course requires learners to map every hour across seven consecutive days. That mapping exposes where time actually goes instead of where a student hopes it might go. Adams and Blair (2019) found that time management behaviors such as goal setting and prioritization predict stronger academic performance across undergraduate populations. Among nursing students specifically, these skills correlate with reduced stress and higher retention (Alshutwi et al., 2020). The plan below presents a realistic week built around fixed clinical commitments, identifies specific barriers to academic success, and selects Evidence-Based Practice as the Nurse of the Future Nursing Core Competency that will guide the upcoming Professional Paper.

Schedule Design and Category Selection

Five labels anchor this plan: Sleep, Work, Family, Coursework, and Commute. Two additional categories, Exercise and Personal Care, prevent the common mistake of treating meals, hygiene, and physical recovery as invisible time sinks rather than visible commitments. Sleep occupies two separate blocks during the work week because a single uninterrupted eight-hour period rarely survives night-shift rotations. A main overnight block from 2:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday and Thursday anchors recovery, while a shorter ninety-minute pre-shift nap on Wednesday and Friday preserves alertness during evening rotations. Work appears as three twelve-hour shifts, scheduled Wednesday through Friday from 7:00 p.m. to 7:30 a.m., with the extra thirty minutes accounting for handoff and brief chart review. Commute blocks run from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. before each shift and from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. afterward, ensuring the schedule does not conceal ninety minutes of driving inside the work category. Family time clusters on Monday evenings and all day Sunday, when school-age children are home and a standing dinner with extended relatives creates a non-negotiable anchor. Coursework lands on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., when the house empties after school drop-off, and on Saturday morning from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. for review and discussion posts. Exercise appears modestly, thirty minutes on Tuesday and Thursday at 2:30 p.m., acknowledging that ideal fitness goals often collapse under shift work unless they remain specific and brief. Personal Care includes morning routines, meals, and the transitional buffer between work and sleep. Every hour carries a label, and no block hides inside another.

The sequence matters as much as the categories. Monday opens with sleep recovery after the final night shift, followed by family breakfast, school preparation, and an afternoon of household coordination. Tuesday presents the first major coursework window, protected by the absence of clinical obligations. Wednesday through Friday follow an inverted pattern: late afternoon preparation, commute, shift, commute, and recovery sleep. Saturday morning offers a shorter academic block before family activities resume, and Sunday remains largely reserved for family, meal preparation for the coming week, and early sleep to reset before Monday. The grid avoids the common trap of scheduling heavy reading on Friday evening after a twelve-hour shift. Instead, Friday after work contains only decompression, a meal, and sleep. Research on nursing students indicates that willpower and cognitive efficiency diminish after prolonged clinical work, which makes post-shift study sessions inefficient even when they look possible on paper (Sadeghi et al., 2024). The schedule treats transition time as real time, not as empty space that can absorb unexpected tasks.

Day	Primary Activities	Key Blocks
Monday	Recovery, Family, Household	Sleep 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.; Family 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Tuesday	Coursework, Exercise, Family	Coursework 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.; Exercise 2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Wednesday	Preparation, Commute, Work	Nap 12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.; Work 7:00 p.m. to 7:30 a.m.
Thursday	Recovery, Coursework, Exercise	Sleep 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.; Coursework 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Friday	Preparation, Commute, Work	Nap 12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.; Work 7:00 p.m. to 7:30 a.m.
Saturday	Coursework, Errands, Family	Coursework 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.; Errands 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Sunday	Family, Meal Prep, Early Sleep	Family 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; Sleep 9:30 p.m. onward

Note: All seven days account for the full 24-hour cycle. Overlaps have been removed, and commute blocks appear as separate categories rather than hidden inside work time.

New Student Orientation and Digital Navigation

New Student Orientation functions as more than a welcome event. It serves as an orientation map for the digital infrastructure that online learners must master quickly. Understanding where the library databases reside, how to access the writing center, and how to locate tutoring announcements removes the ten- to fifteen-minute hunts that fracture concentration during limited study blocks. Orientation also clarifies the structure of the course shell, including where instructors post announcements, how to submit assignments to the correct Dropbox, and how to interpret the calendar view that aggregates deadlines across all active courses. For a working RN, these efficiencies compound. Peck et al. (2021) found that nursing students transitioning to online environments often struggle most with the self-regulated learning demands of digital platforms rather than with the intellectual content itself. Knowing in advance how to download required templates, where to find APA formatting guidance, and how to contact technical support transforms potential obstacles into routine steps. Orientation therefore enhances success not by adding new knowledge but by reducing the friction that consumes scarce minutes during a busy week.

Self-Evaluation: Challenges

The greatest time management challenge is boundary protection. Smartphones, text messages from unit supervisors asking for extra shifts, and the gradual expansion of small errands into open calendar slots all erode protected study time. A second challenge involves cognitive fatigue after night shifts. The body may be awake, but the mind processes reading material more slowly, making Friday evening study sessions inefficient even when they appear possible on paper. A third challenge centers on family visibility. When coursework occurs inside a laptop at the kitchen table, family members may perceive the student as physically present and therefore available for interruption, even during designated academic blocks. Such challenges are not character flaws; they reflect the genuine difficulty of integrating professional identity, parental or partner roles, and student responsibilities within a single schedule (An et al., 2022). Naming them specifically matters because vague acknowledgments of “being busy” offer no target for intervention.

Self-Evaluation: Strategies

Each challenge demands a concrete strategy rather than a general intention. Boundary protection improves through device management. Notifications from social media and non-essential applications will be silenced during Tuesday and Thursday coursework blocks, and the phone will be placed in another room during Saturday morning review sessions. The unit supervisor will receive a polite but firm response template indicating unavailability for extra shifts during active course weeks, with specific dates listed. Errands will be collected on a running list that is addressed only on Saturday afternoon, preventing small tasks from colonizing open hours. Cognitive fatigue will be managed by matching task difficulty to energy level. Tuesday and Thursday mornings, when alertness peaks, will host new reading and complex assignment drafting. Friday post-shift will be limited to sleep and recovery, with no academic expectations. Family visibility will be addressed through a shared printed calendar posted on the refrigerator that color-codes work shifts, coursework blocks, and family time. Children and partners can then see at a glance when the student is physically present but academically occupied. A brief weekly check-in with family members on Sunday evening will review the coming week’s needs and adjust the plan collaboratively. Such strategies align with self-regulated learning principles, which emphasize environmental structuring, time management, and help-seeking as learnable competencies rather than fixed traits (An et al., 2022). When a specific tool or routine backs each strategy, the plan becomes actionable instead of aspirational.

Nurse of the Future Nursing Core Competency Selection

Evidence-Based Practice has been selected as the focus for the Professional Paper. The chosen competency connects directly to the daily realities of clinical nursing, where unit protocols, medication administration guidelines, and patient education materials must constantly be evaluated against current research. The choice reflects a practice problem worth sustained investigation: how can frontline nurses more effectively integrate recent research findings into established clinical workflows without increasing cognitive load during high-acuity shifts? Leadership, Safety, Communication, and Patient-Centered Care all represent vital competencies, but Evidence-Based Practice offers the clearest bridge between the academic work of evaluating literature and the professional work of improving patient outcomes (Dolezel et al., 2021). As the course progresses, this focus will allow the student to examine a specific unit protocol, compare it to current peer-reviewed evidence, and propose a realistic implementation strategy. Selecting a competency rooted in daily practice ensures that the paper remains relevant beyond the immediate demands of the course.

Conclusion

A time management plan does not create more hours in the day. It reveals where those hours already exist and protects them from erosion. Building the schedule around fixed clinical anchors, treating commute and recovery as visible categories, and matching academic tasks to periods of higher alertness acknowledges the real constraints of working RN life. The challenges named here, smartphone intrusion, post-shift fatigue, and family boundary confusion, are specific enough to target with concrete tools. The selection of Evidence-Based Practice as the NOF NCC topic establishes a clear trajectory for the Professional Paper while grounding academic work in clinical relevance. Honesty, not idealization, makes the plan durable.

References

• Adams, R. V., & Blair, E. (2019). Impact of time management behaviors on undergraduate engineering students’ performance. SAGE Open, 9(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018824506
• Alshutwi, S. S., Alkhanfari, H., & Sweedan, N. S. (2020). The influence of time management skills on stress and academic performance level among nursing students. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 10(1), 96-102. https://doi.org/10.5430/jnep.v10n1p96
• An, J., Oh, J., & Park, K. (2022). Self-regulated learning strategies for nursing students: A pilot randomized controlled trial. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(15), 9058. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159058
• Dolezel, J., Zelenikova, R., Finotto, S., Mecugni, D., Patelarou, A., Panczyk, M., Ruzafa-Martinez, M., Ramos-Morcillo, A. J., Skela-Savic, B., & Rabova, A. (2021). Core evidence-based practice competencies and learning outcomes for European nurses: Consensus statements. Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing, 18(3), 226-233. https://doi.org/10.1111/wvn.12506
• Peck, B., Smith, A., Terry, D., & Porter, J. E. (2021). Self-regulation for and of learning: Student insights for online success in a bachelor of nursing program in regional Australia. Nursing Reports, 11(2), 364-372. https://doi.org/10.3390/nursrep11020035
• Sadeghi, N., Janatolmakan, M., Rezaeian, S., Rashi, M., & Khatony, A. (2024). Exploring self-directed learning readiness and related factors: The role of time management skills in nursing students. BMC Medical Education, 24, 608. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-06083-w

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