You may be a student who is struggling with time management, and you wonder what you need to do and change to do it better! Well, worry not; we have highlighted 10 effective time-management tips for college students like you to try.
The tips we have provided below will help you maximize your time in a stress-free way.
It’s normal for students to feel like they don’t have enough time on their hands, yet there are 24 hours a day. We bet in some days you have experienced the same, right? The tasks you need to accomplish in a single day are overwhelming, and you feel there isn’t enough time to do it all.
For instance, you have to study for those exams, enroll in new classes, read your notes, write term papers, and still have fun as a student. The key to achieving all the above is to manage your time wisely; master effective time management skills and enjoy its benefits.
Below are the 10 most effective time management tips shared by highly qualified academic writers from a cheap essay service Affordablepapers.com you can use as a college student.
Table of Contents
What Are The Best Time Management Tips For Students?
Understand and Order Your Tasks
As a student, your first duty is to define and prioritize your tasks, understand and order them to know what you need to do and when to do it. Despite your work being overwhelming, putting it in order will make it much easier. For instance, start by writing down on a paper all you need to accomplish and when to give priority as per the task on hand.
Also, the best way to handle this part is to group related tasks, for example, reading and homework, shopping and house tasks, and more. The list should be written with the first things that need to be done listed first.
A quote by Tim Ferris, a business mogul says, ‘will moving this forward make all the to-do’s unimportant or easier to knock off later?’, can help you a lot to get started with the first things first.
Divide Every Big Task
You may have a 25-page term paper to write, but it seems like you don’t have that time to do it. Thus, the best way you can handle this big task is to divide it into smaller chapters that you can write every day.
Just write the tasks’ deadline and work backward as you figure out how many small parts you can divide the big task into. One of the vital time management skills that students can use. For example, a book may have many chapters to read before the main exam, divide them into the smaller chapter you can read every day after checking the total chapters it has.
Similarly, for research papers, start with the research, write down the outline, and so forth.
Check Off Your Task’s List
With so much to do, you should use a checklist to check off your list just like the doctors and pilots do. Because you may fail to accomplish all the tasks or even forget some with all distractions of school, work, and life.
By checking every accomplished task off means none of the tasks you need to attend to will be forgotten at all. Also, checklists are perfect psychological tools that give someone quick happiness every time they put a check across an accomplished task.
Create Incentives
Still, don’t forget to have celebrations and fun as you handle your time and tasks. Hence it is important to reward yourself for tasks accomplished. You need to do this every time you handle a particular task, no matter how big or small it is.
This positively reinforces your commitment to effective time management as a student. Just go for rewards that range from monetary, activity, or time-based. For example, you may wish to have the latest Yeezy’s, throw a dollar in your savings every time you complete a task. Or take a 30 minutes break as you write the thesis to play a video game.
Schedule Your Tasks
Use digital or print schedulers and agendas to help you schedule your tasks; they are the best to facilitate effective time management by students. Try to break your time into maybe 30-60 minutes blocks setting an outline of what you need to be working on, or you can plan your days ahead.
More importantly, create some time to attend to your family, jobs, and on top of all leisure. Because it may become overwhelming sometimes, but when it gets rough, seek some help from your friends.
Set Smaller And Realistic Goals
We are all living in a society where every person wants to achieve a lot in the shortest time possible! For instance, speakers will always tell you to sacrifice your sleep time and keep working for longer hours! Not forgetting Kanye West who sang, “You should shoot for the stars, so if you fall, you land on the clouds.”
You need some time to relax, handle every task under no pressure and effectively. Simply set realistic and tasks small enough to handle and move on to the bigger ones after. Make a step at a time, rather than no progress at all.
Start Your Day Early
Set your alarm to wake up early, maybe 0500 hours, or does it sound too early for you? It is easy to do this, come on! To effectively make it, go to bed early enough and keep repeating the routine.
Eventually, your body clock will get used to this, and you won’t struggle to wake up early ever again. Set that alarm to maximize your time if you find it hard to get off the bed.
Avoid Any Distractions
Eliminate distractions that surround you everywhere you go and that may hinder your progress to accomplish effective time management as a student. Think about it, students are ever on their digital devices; the most common form of distraction for many students.
Stay away from checking your social media as you study by locking your digital devices out of the internet. For instance, use apps such as the Freedom and StayFocused Apps. They are some of the best apps that take you offline for longer hours and block specific social media sites.
Don’t Multitask
Just handle one task at a time and avoid multitasking to effectively manage your time for every task. According to Neuroscience studies, multitasking is just a myth, because the brain performs best handling one task at a time.
Multitasking causes unnecessary starts and stops that are more exhausting. Just stay focused on one task.
Get Enough Rest
Your body will still need enough rest more so sleeping increases productivity. Don’t push yourself too much such that your brain is overwhelmed and in turn minimized work rate.
Set good sleeping hours; at least 7 hours per night.
Effective time management is vital for all students, but it may be challenging to achieve. However, practicing effective time management will increase your productivity, reduce stress levels, and give yourself plenty of time to focus on more important things.
Every student should have this skill because it is so valuable in shaping the future. Use the above-listed tips to make your time management easier.
