Weekly Email: August 11, 2025

Weekly Email

Aug 11

In this week’s email:

Student Tip: Plan for real time, not hopeful time
Program News Upcoming registration deadlines for faculty mentoring groups, Logos student training, experiential modulars, and graduation.

Don’t forget our new academic year giveaway ends this Thursday on August 14th! Take the survey and enter the giveaway here.

Student Tip: Plan for Real Time, Not Hopeful Time

The other day my wife and I were getting ready to leave. Our son was drawing one of his comics. I asked, “How long until you’re finished?” He said, “It won’t take that long.” Twenty minutes later he wrapped up the page and we walked out the door. Our understanding of “not that long” was very different and thankfully we weren’t needing to rush out the door. Kids' sense of time is funny.

They say, “It’ll be super quick,” and it rarely is. Or you get the classic, “Are we there yet?” five minutes into the drive. It is easy to laugh at kids' time estimates, but adults do this too. I do it often, and I doubt I’m alone.

I will start a task assuming it will be quick. Reading that chapter. Writing that page. Answering that email. Then it takes much longer than I expected. Left to ourselves, most of us are not great at estimating time, especially for work that is new or complex.

Part of the challenge is that our clock-based planning is a relatively recent habit in human history. More importantly, student work is uneven by nature. Some readings are dense and slow. Some writing sessions flow. Life interrupts. So as a student, especially a new one, you will often think something will take less time than it actually does.

A common productivity rule of thumb helps: add margin to your first estimate. If you think something will take 30 minutes, plan for 45. If you think a paper will take one week, plan for a week and a half or even two. New tasks may need even more. Make sure your calendar reflects reality, not optimism.

Another practice helps you get accurate over time: measure your work. Time how long it takes you to read a set number of pages. Track how many words you typically draft in a focused 30-minute block. Because courses and texts vary in complexity, create a few categories. A dense theology text will move slower than a lighter, more practical book. If you track this for a couple of classes and write it down, you will build a personal baseline you can trust when you plan your week.

In summary, try two things:

Create Margin: Add 50 percent to your initial time estimate, and sometimes double it for big or unfamiliar tasks.
Track Your Time: Track how long key tasks actually take so your future plans are grounded in your own data. This is the same reason journaling or counseling can help. When you name something and put it on paper, reality has a way of clarifying. We can distort things in our minds. A written record pulls us back to what is true.

Whether you are new to seminary or have been at it for a while, test this. Pick one assignment this week. Pad your estimate by 50 percent and log two work sessions. My guess is you will find your planning gets calmer and your week runs smoother. If you are anything like me, you will be grateful for the extra margin.

Program News: Upcoming Dates

With the new academic year starting, here are a few items:

Faculty Mentoring Groups: Registration closes Monday, August 18, 2025. Learn more and register here..
Logos Training for Students: Monday, August 25, 2025, from 4:00 to 4:50 p.m. EDT. Register Here..
December Graduation: If you plan to graduate in December, you must add yourself to the waitlist for the Graduation course in MySBTS by Monday, September 15, 2025. If you miss this step, you will not be able to graduate in December. Search for 1GRAD in MySBTS.
- Questions? Email graduation@sbts.edu.
- Find all the graduation details here.
Experiential Modular (Fall 2): Registration closes Monday, September 22, 2025. Register Here. Courses:
- 29250: Survey of Christian Ethics with Dr. Andrew Walker
- 32100: Personal Evangelism and Devotion with Dr. Timothy Beougher
- 23020: The Sermon on the Mount with Dr. Jonathan Pennington

Survey and Giveaway Reminder

To celebrate the new academic year, we’re launching a special survey and giveaway! Your feedback shapes everything we do, and we want to thank you for your participation. Each giveaway winner will receive:

A Southern Seminary shirt (winners will choose from current stock at The Bookstore at Southern)
A Southern Seminary Fellow Carter Mug
A Southern Seminary Lamy Safari Ballpoint Pen
A Southern Seminary faculty book of your choice (up to a $50 value and currently in stock at The Bookstore)

Complete Survey

We’ll increase the number of giveaway winners based on how many responses we receive. As of me writing this email we have 363 entries so we’ll be doing three giveaways, if we hit 450+ entries we’ll add another giveaway:

1–149 responses: 1 winner
150–299 responses: 2 winners
300–449 responses: 3 winners
450+ responses: 4 winners (our current record for a survey/giveaway is 475!)
If we hit 750 responses, we’ll select 5 winners!

Survey closes at Thursday, August 14th at 11 pm EDT