As students, we don’t hear much of such a notion as time management, which is very unfortunate. If only we knew at least some of the time management techniques and applied them at college – achieving our academic goals, and the learning process in general, would’ve been much easier.
What are those techniques? Why is time management important for students, after all? Let’s dig deeper into this topic and shed light on some of the most effective time management techniques that you can use today to make you more successful in school.
Time management in students life
Interestingly, some students possess time management skills naturally, and not because they’ve learned them. Studying becomes easier for them and in a given amount of time they manage to do more assignments than other students. They are better organized, always meet deadlines, and in general, appear to be more active. Observing them doing everyday tasks can teach you a lot of useful time management tricks.
Conversely, other students are constantly running out of time, struggle with deadlines, and flip out on the eve of term exams.
The key to effective time management in school is treating time as a resource. Just like money, food, or even better comparison – energy, our time is limited, and one cannot ‘buy’ or ‘borrow’ more of it. There is only so much time in a week and so much of it in a day. Once you get the point, you start to value time more and aim to do many important things in advance.
The list of 5 most essential time management skills for students
- Setting priorities. Prioritizing is a well-known technique used in time management. In a given period, you get to do a certain number of assignments and tasks in private life and academics, while some of them are always more important or difficult than others. Proper prioritization of the key things will make you more successful going forward.
- One task at a time. Focus on what’s more important for you now and try to do one thing at a time. Talks about multitasking and how that helps do things are largely an exaggeration. The human brain is simply not ‘wired’ to do multiple things simultaneously. We can only do something well when we focus on it and devote all our energy and skills to its achievement.
- Eating a frog. Psychologists say that the most boring tasks are usually the ones consuming most of our time. Hence, whenever you have too much work on your academic plate, find the ugliest and most boring (the frog) task and start doing it right away. Such types of tasks demand thorough preparation from us, and we should not waste our time on other things.
- Small things first. Contrary to the previous one, there is the so-called ‘small things first’ technique. It stipulates distinguishing several insignificant assignments (in terms of their difficulty and time aspects) and focusing on fulfilling those first. They are easy and can bring quick results, motivating and encouraging you to go on.
- Busy evenings and mornings. Whenever possible, try starting your academic work in the evening. You don’t have to complete anything, but just planning and staying actively thinking of the task before going to bed will help you do it easier the next morning.
The bottom line
So, what is the importance of time management for students? It makes you more efficient in your studies, as well as capable of effectively balancing private and academic lives. In case you struggle to apply any of the popular time-management techniques to fulfill, for example, your writing assignments, consider trying a college essay writing service. It can quickly help you with the most time-consuming and tedious tasks and free up precious time for other, more important activities.
