Everyone has the same 24 hours every day, but it appears some students are more productive than others because they master their time management hacks. In fact, it’s not common to hear students blaming colleges and institutions for being hard on them. Sometimes, they go as far as blaming their school for not giving them enough time to prepare or engage in other activities.
Here’s a raw truth; no time is enough. People who finish projects on time, respond to emails, read their books, get assignments done, and always tick nearly everything on their to-do lists every day have mast secret time management hacks.
Students who wish to be outstanding and are ready to work for it should be masters of time management.
In this article, you’ll discover how to master time management as a student and make the best of your time. Now, let’s dive in!
1. You might not do everything
Firstly, you need to understand that time management isn’t magical. You’re a human being, and you don’t really have to feel so bad for not getting everything done. Change your mindset; it happens to everyone at some point.
When tasks pile up, we tend to start thinking about what we should do and the ones we shouldn’t do. At this point, any student can start feeling lazy and begin to procrastinate in a bid to avoid those feelings.
The key is accepting the fact that you might not finish everything you mapped out to do. But then, you need to get started. Spending much time thinking and procrastination helps you achieve nothing but adds only negative feelings.
Clear your mindset! You might not do everything. Just get started.
2. Rearrange how you spend your time
If time management hacks must work for you, then there is a need to consider how you spend each minute of your day and night. It’s one thing to make a schedule, but it takes discipline to stick to it.
Firstly, you may want to take note of what you did at the end of each day. Do this for a few days, and decide on the important and unimportant things. This will help you take off things that don’t need to be on your list.
3. Create a to-do-list to improve time management hacks
This idea might sound so stale, but it still works! As a student, it’s common to have a load of overwhelming tasks to do every day. Ranging from assignments to projects, lectures, and personal activities, students are often known to be too occupied. There is where a to-do list comes to play.
There is this feeling that comes from ticking task checkboxes. You can make use of a pen and paper to list out your daily tasks, perhaps, in their order of priority. There are other online tools to help you create a to-do list.
Work towards each of the tasks, and tick their checkboxes as you complete them. While doing this, ensure you work with the time and don’t spend all the time on just one task. Remember, you might not finish the whole task, but just get started.
4. Know the difference between “important” and “urgent”
While creating your to-do list, you need to understand the difference between urgent and important tasks. Your list should take into account important and urgent tasks. As a student, there are several important but not quite urgent tasks. Research shows that human brains are wired to push our attention to activities or things that we perceive as urgent.
No matter the content of the task, if we perceive any duty as urgent, we can’t often help but hone our focus on it. This is where most students waste their time. Some things can be urgent but not really important. Likewise, some things can be quite important but not urgent.
5. Get up earlier
One of the time management hacks every student should learn, and master is waking up earlier. It’s common to see students procrastinate, and eventually, get everything done. But then, it’s nicer and even less stressful to begin your day earlier. Start tackling the tasks on your to-do list!
Let’s imagine a possible scenario where you have to send or respond to emails before going for lectures in the morning. It would be best if you could wake up earlier to send or respond to emails before preparing for school. Otherwise, you may be stuck between doing those and getting ready for lectures.
6. Focus on one task at a time
Ask some students, and they will gladly tell you that they multitask. Perhaps, while reading, they tend to reply to emails on their computer or mobile devices. Some may be trying to read while eating. Here’s a raw fact; multitasking is quite a wasteful way to work. In fact, when you multitask, you might end up not getting either of the jobs done or done correctly.
Choose one activity at a time, strive to get it done quickly and move on to the next. If you can, get the task done perfectly, so you don’t have to revisit it again.
7. Take a break
Some people who talk to you about managing your time properly as a student will hardly tell you about taking a break. You’re a human being, and you need to take some time out once in a while. Don’t feel guilty about it; you need some time off.
While drawing your plans and schedule, do well to include breaks. You need them! Meditate, engage in some exercises, step outside and stroll, make a quick dish or smoothie, and then get back to your work feeling new again.
8. Do a weekly review
One of the best time management skills every student should master is to learn how to do a weekly review. In a bid to get things done better, you need to embark on a weekly review.
Take time out to check the calendar of the past and current week. Look out for loose ends, and other matters that require extra or further attention. Review your goals for the semester and plan on working in line with these goals in the next week.
9. Set deadlines
Another way to achieve proper time management is by setting deadlines for every task. In fact, when you put a task on your to-do list without a deadline, you might feel frustrated in the end, perhaps, because you’ve spent so much time.
It’s even better to get jobs done before the set deadline. Take, for instance, if you have an assignment or report to submit on Friday, you may want to work on it and get it ready on Thursday. You can review it on Friday.
10. Break huge projects into smaller projects
Just the thoughts of accomplishing huge projects can be dreadful. When a student has a huge project to work on, they tend to be stranded and clueless about how to begin. Often times than not, they end up doing little or nothing about the project. This compromises their time management plans.
Here’s a way to go! When you have a significantly huge project to work on, start by breaking it down. When you can achieve this step, you’ll find out that the seeming huge project is nothing but a combination of little tasks. Start with one; then continue as fast and as much accurate as possible.
11. Stop procrastination
The time is now! If there is a need, shut your door, switch off your WiFi, hideout, and avoid other sorts of distractions. This will help you to get started now. Here’s a wild guess; if you procrastinate when it’s time to take on a task, you might end up not working on it.
The idea is to get started, even if you’re not doing it so well. It’s quite understandable to have your initial results looking not-so-good. But you’ll find the loopholes while you work on your tasks and fix them as you go.
Guess what? You can’t actually manage time, but your tasks and events. The fact is time waits for no one, and it appears to tick faster when you don’t have a clear action plan. As a student looking to make good grades and still stand out in other extra-curricular activities, it’s best to master the tricks to time management. This entails knowing what to do when to do them, and how to do them.
When you take time out to learn how to manage your time, you tend to handle even more tasks effectively. Start today, start now, and maximize your time!
