Time Management In College

Time management in college is important. As a college student you are likely to be pulled in many different directions - college, social life, and study. Here I provide 4 tips to get things done and make the most of your college experience.

Do you cram for assignments and exams?

Are you overwhelmed with too much to do?

These tips for time management in college enable you to:

1. Plan your time
2. Overcome procrastination
3. Identify and take control of any time wasters
4. Deal with stress

Tip #1: Plan your time

Planning your work is one of the surest ways to take control of your time. You need to ask yourself two questions:

1. Do you have a semester plan? If not, then you need to get one from your university or college. If they don’t have one then download and print this academic planner.

In your academic planner put all of your your obligations such as assessments and exams over the semester. This semester level planning helps you to identify busy periods which you can prepare for.

2. Do you have a weekly planner tool? Your semester plan should be funneled down to a weekly plan of classes and other obligations. This is the natural short-term planning tool for high quality students.

This student planner tool is a great way to show the things that you need to accomplish this week. By working your plan you remain focused on the things that you have to do, rather than being distracted and putting of these things till tomorrow.

While having a plan of your work is great, you need to work your plan. For the student, in most cases, this means overcoming procrastination.

Tip #2: Overcome student procrastination

Research shows most people procrastinate and that up to 90% of the student population can procrastinate on assignments, homework, or study. To some extent we all suffer from procrastination but it becomes a problem when we leave assignments to the last minute or cram the night before an important exam.

This type of procrastination increases your stress and your grades can suffer. There are number of tips to beat procrastination which include:

• Eating the ugly frog first
• Identifying the next step
• Breaking the large assignment into smaller bits

I talk more about this at beating student procrastination.

Tip #3: Identify your time wasters

Do you spend too much time on social networking sites, watching TV, or socializing?

Study after study has shown that simply monitoring your behavior is a powerful intervention in itself. By monitoring your time you gain clarity in how you are spending your time. This allows you to identify your time robbers.

By objectively knowing how you spend your time you can set time management goals to reduce this time usage. If you spend your time at the computer then time keeping software is useful as you can set it and it runs in the background. However, a time management and students log may be useful if you want to monitor time away from the computer.

Tip #4: Deal with student stress effectively

Stress is something that a college student has to deal with. The stress of:

• having too much to do
• sitting  and exam
• presenting your findings in front of the class.

Mastering stress can make your college experience more enjoyable. There are a number of simple and effective to deal with stress. These include:

• planning
• relaxation exercises such as deep breathing
• filling out a stress management log
• biofeedback

I talk more about this at stress management techniques.

Remember, not all college students have the same demands. That is why it is important to tailor your time management for college students.

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