Student Time Management Techniques

Learn to Balance Your Act in College

Student time management techniques can be very useful for college students as they develop the way they use time. This includes everything they do and the responsibilities they should handle.

Being in college is a situation that should make you sure that you have “steady nerves” with the things you’re going to face. This is because it is true that you can be dangerously prone to several stress and pressure.

This includes many activities like:

Attending regular classes

Constant studying

Working on a part-time job

Doing extra-curricular activities

Finding time for social functions and interactions with family and friends

With all these different activities in your college life, you might find it hard to balance your personal time properly. This makes time management for college important. One of the important student time management techniques is that you cannot afford to concentrate on just one particular activity and lose track with your other activities.

You must be able to distribute your time well and avoid disrupting the smooth balance of activities once you have established them.

How to Balance Things Out

It can be easy for you to say that you can balance your act and find the time needed for every responsibility you engage in. However, you need a strong sense of personal time management so that you can balance your college schedule properly.

Here are time management principles you can use. These can help you stay balanced and help reduce the stress as you deal with your everyday obligations as a student in college.

6 Student Time Management Techniques

1. Set Up Your Goals Properly

In Steven Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” he shared a good story about big rocks in a jar where the moral lesson is that you need to set out your most important priorities in life, that is your big rocks first.

This way, you can clearly define your ultimate goals and you should not neglect it once the other smaller goals and priorities like small rocks, sand and water (in Stephen Covey’s story) pile up to occupy your time.

Once you have set in your ultimate goal, you can set out to determine other particular goals.

For example:

Define your academic goals

Extracurricular goals

Social activity goals

When you have done these things, you can determine what you want to accomplish in a day, a week, a whole semester and even your whole school year.

It is important as part of student time management techniques for you to understand that setting goals will help you become more inclined or obligated to follow through with them and check them off one by one as you accomplish each goal.

2. Setting Your Priorities Straight

Your student time management techniques should give significance to priorities. Once you have determined what your ultimate and particular goals are, you will know what you have to accomplish.

Setting your priorities straight means figuring out which tasks you must accomplish first in order to achieve the goals you have set. You may set up a list everyday on what activities you should give attention to.

3. Get Yourself Organized

Being organized is not losing freedom. Self organization is a personal time management discipline and is a significant key towards completing your tasks in a timely manner. Learn to identify each of the goals that you have and you should determine the schedule when they are supposed to be accomplished. You may need some calendar for this.

In your calendar you should list things like:

Your class schedule

Have a few hours for review

Mark social events

Club meeting schedule

Regular exercise time

Any other necessary activity that is essential to achieving your ultimate goal

For each of these activities, you should make sure that you have included the range or period of time needed for them to be done and their deadlines or due dates of accomplishment.

You should be dedicated to check and follow your calendar so you can develop a consistent routine while managing to balance your time on numerous tasks.

4. Procrastination is a Deficiency

Procrastination is a very common problem with time management for college. When you allow the habit of procrastination seep into your being, it will cause you to fail badly in balancing your personal time.

When you have set out to accomplish a task or plan on doing a certain activity, you should do it by all means. You should avoid neglecting a schedule or forgetting a due date. It’s that important for student time management techniques.

You must beware of the habit of putting off tasks for tomorrow what you can do today. This kind of attitude can result in unnecessary stress and excessive pressure for you which are not healthy.

5. Use Each of Your Extra Minute Wisely

You can accomplish your small tasks during some situations when you find yourself with nothing to do. These are your vacant periods of time like waiting for the bus to arrive or sitting idly in-between classes.

These are circumstances that are good opportunities for you to accomplish simple tasks, that are part of completing larger tasks.

6. Identify Your Most Productive Times

If you know the time when you have more energy to work then you can do more. You’ll know when to start and finish challenging and demanding tasks. Meanwhile, during the time when you have less energy for work, you can dedicate them to your less challenging tasks.

These are all effective student time management techniques that you should implement as your strategy and you’ll see how you’ll get more tasks completed on each day.

Student time management techniques are always helpful in improving your skills in using your time to its best. You should develop a well-maintained personal time management plan involving these techniques and you’ll achieve better things as you mature. You will also become a well-balanced, "all-around" college student.

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