Do you find yourself juggling with too much work? Missing an appointment with your friends? Too much study to cope with? If this describes you, then you are a part of a huge chunk of the population that is poor with what we call as ‘Time-Management Skills’. We’d assist you to get your schedules on time!
12 productive tips of time management for students
1. Make Schedule and Follow it
The first step towards time management is to properly plan what you want to achieve in the given time period. You can make a schedule for a week, dividing the work daily into hours. This way you will not burden yourself and follow a proper schedule to do your work.
Use apps for planning your studies, to track exactly what you do. Divide your total work into the time you will be studying. This way you will have sufficient time to study, entertain yourself, hang out with friends and everything you would want to do.
Don’t just make a plan, follow it. Following the schedule can be difficult for you but it is absolutely essential to follow the plan that you make. This way no plans will be needed to get altered especially the academic ones. Keep some spare time in the schedule so that due to any uncontrollable delay in studies part you can shift that activity in spare time.
2. Be Realistic
Don’t overburden yourself. Know what your capabilities are and your limits. Make a very realistic plan for yourself so that you don’t get overwhelmed. Typically you would not study more than 10-12 hours, so don’t create a schedule of 15 hours. It will be dumb of you to manage your time this way.
You have to keep in account that you need time to relax, socialize and do other things, alas we all are humans and our brain function has certain limitations. Tasks take longer to complete in real situations than we anticipate them to, give yourself some extra time in order to complete the work.
3. Refrain From Procrastinating
Procrastination is a curse. It will make you feel good now, being in leisure is bliss but when things will pile up and you will have to complete it in rush with very little efficiency. Resulting in the productivity of your work really bad.
Know how you can beat procrastination. Everyone has their own way of going around procrastination, you need to know what works for you. Some people may feel that they waste quite a lot of time if they study at home, so these people should study at a library. Some people can be more productive at home, they would feel more comfortable at home rather than going and studying at a library, so you need to know what will be your most favourable conditions of time management for a student.
4. Distant Yourself From All the Distractions
Distractions are the biggest hurdle (Duh!) They consume your time like a black hole, it may feel nice to be distracted from studies as study seems to be boring and the distraction (no matter how small) will be far more interesting than what you are studying.
Isolate yourself from Mobile or other electronic devices that you use for entertainment. Switch off notifications from Instagram or Facebook or any other social media you use. This way you won’t have the temptation to rush for your Mobile to see what notification you’ve received.
Time is the highest wasted due to distractions, surround yourself with people who motivate you for good. Keep friends who bring out the best in you. This may seem a little too much for a piece of advice for time management for students but you yourself will see the results if you act on it.
5. Set Priorities
The crucial step where most of us go wrong; is deciding the priorities. Postpone unnecessary tasks. If you desire for a flexible time execution, perform activities in order of importance. Two things should determine your priority (mostly):
(i) Is it Personal/Academic work?
(ii) What is the work deadline?
If you answer these appropriately, you’d be able to fit things correctly in your schedule. Not everything you do is to be done when you do it, some tasks are more important than the others. Give ABC grading to tasks, A being the most important, this way by grading you will know what needs to be done at most urgency and what plans can be postponed.
Check out Apps and websites useful for students.
6. Learn to Say No
You cannot and should not be always available to everyone. You have to say no to people in order to have time for yourself. Some of you may have the issue of always saying yes to plans with friends. You cannot say no to people, you should feel guilty for telling people no.
Thinks about the endless ways you could have used your precious time rather than wasting on things you were not even interested in the first place. Time stops for no one, once it goes you will regret it, so instead of regretting tomorrow, say No today.
7. Get Enough Sleep
Sleep is something that is targeted the most when anyone has to take time out of the day. You feel sacrificing some sleep will be no harm to you and the task will be completed, be it hanging out with friends or doing your homework at last instance. DON’T DO THAT.
Sleep is an integral part of your next day. You have to sleep for at least 7 hours in order to function properly for the next day. A healthy mind will evidently function better than a tired mind. Sleep shall make you ready to survive the next day with full capacity.
You won’t be able to study properly if your brain is not functioning properly, your time will be consumed more than normal, to do the simplest of things. This way by sleeping sufficiently you will actually be able to do better time management for studies. And as a student, you will find yourself in a better position to study or play when you sleep better.
8. Eat Healthily & Exercise Regularly
As a student your only goal for time management shouldn’t be to make sufficient time for studies, you also have to be healthy and fit in order to tackle life. Students and even adults love food that tastes good but has 0 nutritional value, but when they are asked to eat healthily it is difficult for them to do as it is not tasty.
Being healthy should be a priority and not eating tasty food. Students have to sit and study almost most of the time due to which you are physically unfit. You have to take time out of the day in order to stay fit and start eating healthy otherwise sickness will be inevitable.
Would you waste your time in the future due to sickness, or Stay fit and eat healthy now? The choice is yours.
9. Take Breaks at Proper Intervals
Breaks are as important as studying. Your brain has certain limits to which it can keep functioning. Typically a brain of teenagers or adults can concentrate on a single thing constantly for 10-20 minutes(Source: Wikipedia). It may vary from person to person, but you should give yourself rest for some time after such duration.
You may feel like you are understanding and grasping topics easily but if you test yourself you won’t remember things, this is because after a certain time you won’t be able to concentrate properly. So take breaks at regular intervals and give rest to your brain. This way you won’t have to do the same thing repeatedly and save time.
Read this while you are on a break trending memes.
10. Review Yourself
After planning and execution are done you need to review yourself. Reviewing is a must as by reviewing you will find out what you planned and actually achieved. You will come to know about your mistakes, where it all went wrong. Self-realization is better than your mistakes pointed out to you. One useful technique that helps you finish your assignments and meet deadlines is by using a tomato timer that can also help improve your attention span and concentration.
11. Minimise Your Mistakes
The mistakes that you do cannot be completely omitted but you can learn from them and try to minimize the impact on your time management. Little steps on improving the ways you study and do other stuff can highly reduce the time that is wasted and that you achieve your goals at the proper time as planned from the next time.
12. Reward Yourself
Remember you are here to do the best as you can. Don’t go hard on yourself. Every week you should review yourself and see if you have achieved your target of the week or not. And if you are truly satisfied with the results you should reward yourself by going to a movie or eating something tasty(Only this one time to be rewarded).
This way you will feel that you have achieved something and you shall continue to follow the said schedule as after you rigorously stayed on this path it will start to feel good and the reward will be cherry on the top.
If you have any other suggestions for time management for students please mention them in the comments.
