4 Steps to Becoming a Time Management Master
Why does it feel like there isn’t enough time in the day to complete everything? Does it feel like no matter how hard you try, time seems to elude you?
Mastering time management can be a difficult task for some people, especially when balancing school, work and fun. College is a great time to learn these skills because of the wide variety of activities and events that college life provides. By following these 4 steps, you will be able make time work with you, not against you.
How many hours per week do you have as “free time”? Well, let’s break it down.
There are 24 hours per day x 7 days per week = 168 hours total per week.
| Fixed Activity | # of Hours Per Day | Total Hours Per Week |
|---|---|---|
| Sleeping | 8 hrs. | 56 hrs. |
| Eating | 3 hrs. | 21 hrs. |
| Attending Class/Labs | 4 hrs. | 20 hrs. |
Total Time for Fixed Activities = 97 hours.
168 available hours – 97 fixed hours = 71 FREE HOURS
That’s only 10 hours per day of free time!
1. Be Proactive
Seeing as your only have 10 hours of FREE TIME available each day, you must be proactive in your decisions to use this time. Being proactive means taking initiative, rather than waiting for others to act first or to make decisions for you. The opposite of proactive is reactive.
Accepting a reactive approach is not going to allow you to utilize your time efficiently. For example, instead of studying when your classmates start studying, decide when to start based on your own schedule. Simply being reactive and “following the crowd” is a waste of time.
2. Organization
An essential part of being proactive — as opposed to reactive — is looking ahead. If you don’t own a planner, get one. If you own a Mac, you might be interested in using iCal to organize your life. Many educators recommend using a pen and paper approach to this step but personally, I think we need to utilize all this new technology that we have. In your planner include everything:
- Test dates from your syllabus
- Project deadlines
- Last day to drop a class
- School holidays
- Professor office hours
- Club and Organization Meetings and Events
- Doctor’s Appointments
- Football/Basketball Home Games (not required but it helps me)
- Final Exam/Midterm dates and times
- Any other event or task that you need to be aware of
Doing this will drastically reduce your stress level. It allows you to know when your “busy” weeks will be, and to plan accordingly.
3. Plan Out Each Day
Plan your days from start to finish. A great way to do this is to spend a few minutes the night before going through the day in your head. If something jumps out as important, write it down in your planner. If you write down things like “Pick up paycheck from work” you will remember it much easier.
4. Prioritize
Make sure to distinguish the goals that are truly important — such as completing a research project — from those that may seem urgent but are really not important — like organizing a softball game with your friends. Don’t spend too much time doing busy work, or work that appears productive but in reality only keeps you occupied.
The best way to do this is to rank your tasks by importance. Choose a task and compare it to the rest of the required tasks for the day and rank it. Complete the highest ranked tasks first then continue down the list until all the tasks have been completed.
What other time management techniques do you use? I would love to hear your additions in the comments!
Jay Willingham writes a college advice blog at CampusByte. His site’s main aim is to help people develop Study Skills by incorporating new technology. Photo Credit.
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