As a college student you will learn very quickly the value of their your when you are struggling to balance work, school and a social life. With so
much to do it can be easy to become overwhelmed, stressed and
eventually burnt out. Students can help themselves stay sane and still
get everything done by developing good time management skills early on. These skills will not only be valuable during your time at school but can carry over later into the workplace. Here are some important basics of time management.
- Write things down. With so much going on it’s hard
to remember every little thing you have to do — unless you write it
down of course. Get a student planner or a notebook to take down all
your important engagements, assignments and more.
- Don’t take too many hours. Unless you’re ultra
ambitious, taking more than 18 hours a semester is unnecessary and will
result in extra stress and less time to concentrate on each class. Take
a reasonable number of classes each semester so you won’t feel
completely overwhelmed.
- Stay organized. You’ll save yourself loads of time
later by staying organized from the get-go. Instead of having to hunt
around for notes, assignments and misplaced papers, keeping them all in
one place makes studying and doing homework easier and less stressful.
- Focus on one thing at a time. Multitasking may
seem like a good idea, but really you’ll get more done by focusing your
energy on one task at a time. Once you’ve finished one thing you can
check it off your list and move onto the next.
- Take charge of your time. At the end of the day,
only one person has control over how you spend your time, and that’s
you. Take charge of your day, get important things done and learn to
say no if you have to.
- Resist the urge to procrastinate. Everyone
knows how hard it is to want to stay in and study for finals when it’s
perfect outside or you’ve just gotten a new video game. The world is
full of distractions, and to really be effective at managing your time
you have to find a way to ignore them when it counts. Give yourself
little breaks as rewards for not putting off tasks.
- Get an early start to your day. College students
aren’t usually known as early bird types, but you can be doing yourself
a huge favor by getting up early. You’ll have more time during the day
to work on homework and study, which will leave your evenings free to
do things you enjoy.
- Learn material the first time around. If you don’t
understand something in your classes don’t just gloss over it and
assume you’ll learn it later. Take the time to ensure you learn it the
first time. It can help you to more easily understand concepts that
follow and will save you the time of revisiting the topic later.
- Control your surroundings. While you can’t always
make your study environment distraction free, you can do your best to
create an environment that is most conducive to getting work done. Go
to the library, put on headphones or whatever it takes to keep you from
straying off task.
- Have confidence in your abilities. Sometimes your
schedule will seem almost impossible. Have confidence that you can do
things, and you may surprise yourself when you truly step up to the
challenge. You’ll never know how much you can do unless you test
yourself, so give yourself opportunities to shine, even under pressure.
- Get the most out of class. If you’re just going to
class to sleep or talk to you friends, you’re wasting time you could be
using to do other things. Read over class materials ahead of time so
you have a rough idea of what class will be about. This will allow you
to concentrate on the elements of the lessons that are truly important
and make it easier for you to study in the future.
- Know what’s important to you. Everyone has a
different idea of what they want to take out of college. Some people
want to get perfect grades and others are more concerned with making
friends and building relationships. Figure out what things are most
important to you and concentrate the bulk of your energies on those.
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