Time Management Tips for College Students
Books, articles, and even entire websites are dedicated simply to providing tips and resolving college students’ issues on time management. But what most of these articles and websites lack is specificity; students won’t magically “stop procrastinating” unless you illustrate specific instances wherein they can avoid procrastination and how. To give you an idea of what we’re talking about, check out the (specific) examples of tips below.
Don’t use your sleeping hours as a time bank
It’s common practice among students to forgo sleep or bargain with their body’s resting time to get more minutes and hours of studying. We’re all guilty of “withdrawing” hours from our sleeping time to make way for other activities. What we fail to believe and realize is that we’re less effective in doing activities when we lack rest and sleep. Your brain can absorb much more information after 6-8 hours straight of sleep, as compared to after waking up from 2 to 3 hours of sleep. So next time you plan on skipping sleep to study, remember that your weary brain won’t be able to effectively absorb information. You’ll only be wasting time that should’ve been spent on sweet slumber.
Master multi-tasking by doing feasible activity combinations
Laundry day today? Bring your class notes along and read them while waiting for the dryer to finish. Going to the library to photocopy notes? Might as well browse through shelves for possible references for your Psych 101 paper due next week. If you’re good at halving your attention, you can even go to a brainstorming session for a group paper AND participate while scribbling down notes for your reaction paper in film class. There are countless ways to go by the “two birds with one” principle, just make sure that you stay within your limits.
Make a non-negotiable to-do list
We say non-negotiable because the tasks written in your to-do list should be those that should not be skipped or put off to a later time. Sticking to a to-do list is hard for a lot of students, because they often have to multi-task and squeeze in sudden deadlines and study for exams or write reports that were announced at such a short notice. What you can do is write two to-do lists; a general one (which includes non-academic tasks such as laundry and grocery shopping) and a non-negotiable one. We highly recommend arranging the tasks on your to-do lists according to urgency. By doing so, your mind can focus on the task at hand and minimize the tendency of getting overwhelmed with the numerous other tasks listed.
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