Time Management

What Every New Freshman Enrolled at Salt Lake Community College Should Know about Time Management

Managing time is one the most important factor in student life even outside the student life.  Time management makes a student see different challenges of life especially for students who are unable to manage their time effectively. With effective time management students could make their studies more effective. Also time management is a key to success in life. I think good time management is essential to success in college. If you plan your time sensibly, which allows you to spread your work over a session, avoid a traffic jam of work, and cope with study stress. Many deadlines for college work occur at the same time and unless you plan ahead, you will find it impossible to manage. To meet the demands of study you need to spread your workload over a session. Work out what needs to be done and when. Work out how to use your available time as efficiently as possible. This paper will explain the way in which how I manage to get the most out of my time to fulfill my studies and the strategies which I used to manage my time efficiently.

When to study? Studying can often be boring and there are many subjects that you are just not interested in, you want to study these first. Often times we study what we like first and we lose focus, so if we start with the difficult or boring than we can start fresh, and then when you get to what interest you it picks you back up.  You also should find your best time of day. Most people learn better in the day so you should try waking up earlier around 5 am and see if this can work for you. There are a lot of successful people that do their best work in the early hour of the day. On the other hand some people do their best after midnight. So if you have difficulty with time you should figure out if morning or night will help you get that extra hour in. You need to know that you should give yourself two hours of study time for every hour in class. Of course you can adjust this to you and how you learn but you should evaluate this if you find that you’re not having enough time to study. You might only need one hour in one subject and three in the other. It is important to spend the time you need on studying but try not to do it all at once, break it up and give yourself breaks.

Where to Study? Finding a regular place to study is a big thing for your mind and body. It helps you develop a sense of routine and triggers a response. I found it helpful to study in a place that I feel comfortable in, and that is familiar to me. Every time I try to study at home I get easily distracted and a little too comfortable and I start to relax too much. You need energy to study and when you begin to relaxed you start to lose focus and your mind often drifts into daydream.

How to handle distraction? You need to pay attention to what distracts you the most whether it’s yourself or someone else. Often time when I study I feel like just getting up and doing something that is unimportant. I have to sit and ask myself it is really that important or can I do it later. I am often my biggest distraction. The phone is a huge distraction even when you’re not studying. I turn my phone on vibrate when I study and then can decide if it’s a call I need to take or not most of the time I don’t. If they continue to call you can answer and let them know your studying or text them. Another distraction though is texting and you need to use some self discipline and not answer text until you are done with your studying. Your time is valuable and you need to know when you can lend your time to others. If it is your usual study time you need to learn how to say no I’m busy. Be prepared for the next day, organizing the night before for a long day of studying can help you with distraction and avoid complication.  Avoid noise, although I feel I have better concentration when listening to soft music. Don’t study in front of the TV it is a horrible noise and I often start losing thought process when the TV is on. Also let people you know that studying requires a large amount of your time and that when your studying you won’t be free for awhile. I often tell people that I’m busy with work and I will call them when I’m done and when they call back and hour later I pick up and say I’ll call you right back without even saying hi. It’s hard to handle external situations that interrupt your time, but figuring out how to deal with them is a time saver.

When you get stuck? If you have a big task try to pick out something you can do in five minutes or so, this way you can work on the goal a step at a time instead of feeling overwhelmed. You should also be aware if you’re being too hard on yourself. Avoid negative talk like ‘this is too hard,’ or ‘I can’t do this.” This will set yourself back and cause you to spend more time than needed on one little thing. It is important to ask yourself if it is good enough or do I really need to spend the extra time on it. Don’t give up but sometimes you need to work past something to finish. Are you spending your time like you would your money Are you spending your time like you would your money? Most students are investing a lot of time and money into their education and only doing a mediocre job that in the end is not paying what they spent. You really need to ask yourself if you are spending your time in a productive way. If your are constantly putting things off waiting for more time then you will never have the time for those things that are important, everything will then become about the urgent and that is not a happy place to be, because you will get burnt out.  If you find yourself wasting time you need to evaluate yourself and reflect on your time wasters so that you can gain information about yourself and save yourself time. Do you really have the time you need? I think that if someone offered me money I would find the time and yet I tell myself I don’t have the time? Well I do have school loans and so I am getting paid to find the time and it is important to understand that this is not only about wasting money it is about wasting time.

I will advise that you make a promise to yourself that you will get it done. I have promised myself that I will get through school. It has not been easy so far and now I know it’s not easy, but I have promised myself that this is what I want and I will get it. I also have to promise myself throughout the way that I will find time for studying even though I am a single mother and I also work. I have an abundance of obligation and often put school on the back burner and have found through this course work that it is possible to have it all and still have time for myself if I can apply my time management skills. I also have come to understand that school should be my second priority and that finding time for something so high on the list is extremely important. I am still trying to master time management strategies, but also know that time management is an ever changing experience.

References

Ellis, Dave. (2009). Becoming a Master Student .Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.