Just within first few days of college, the harsh reality of time management dawns upon the students. Time management is one of the most difficult and challenging aspects of college life. There is limited time available and students struggle to balance college life, social life and work life. There are just a lot of things to do and the students get stressed and eventually burn out.
Assuming that the students seeking time management help have very less time, the tips for time management will be short and to the point. Here are a few of them.
Make sure that you have one of these – either paper calendar, cell phone or a PDA. These will keep you organized. There are so many things to do; it’s hard to remember unless you write them down. So write the things down and maintain a schedule for everything.
- Avoid being ultra ambitious. Engage in reasonable amount of classes and try to concentrate on each class. Don’t forget to schedule in time for some rest and some time to breathe.
- If you have a long task lists that you have to complete, then prioritize some tasks and spend more time on such tasks than other less essential tasks. Thus, if you think you need to spend more time on chemistry than biology, do it. Prioritization will help you in avoiding over-committing your time.
- Stay organized and be focused. You can save much of your valuable time by being organized. Keep all your notes, assignments and related data in one place, so you need not waste time in searching for them. At the same time, focus all your energy and concentrate on a single task at a time rather than multi-tasking.
- If you take a bus or a train ride to college everyday or if you have some spare time while doing your laundry stuff, then you can utilize this time to study a bit. Thus, the less time you waste, means the more time you have.
- Don’t wait till the last moment. Do your every task like submissions, studies etc. on time. Waiting until the last minute will make even the easiest tasks more stressful and it will even tarnish your best efforts. Just make sure that you don’t have to rush around to finish the things.
- Figure out your peak hours. Students can perform better mentally in some hours of the day. So figure out your peak hours and work hard in those times as you will have the energy to get through your studies in a quick and efficient way.
- Consider this, you have a presentation and an exam tomorrow and you catch flu on the day when you have planned an all-nighter. An unexpected event can tumble even the best of the schedules. So, always be prepared for the unexpected events.
- Plan out a schedule for yourself at the commencement of each week so that there is a perfect picture of what to expect from the upcoming week and how it will play out.
- Thus, keep trying new systems and find new ways of managing your time if your previous scheduling was a disaster. So, as the old adage goes, if you don’t succeed for the first time, try again. Eventually, you will find a method that suits you.
These tips aren’t magic pills that will make you super efficient overnight. Practice them over a period of time and you will be less stressful and more successful in managing your time and making most of it.
