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Time management is one of the most important skills that any student can take away from college. It is one of those skills that you are told will shape the rest of your life. When a student moves from high school to college, many things change. The major change is that most college professors do not care whether or not you show up to class. However, you, the student, should care about going to class. Showing up to class accomplishes a lot of different things. First, it lets your professor know that you care. More importantly, if you sit in the first two rows, your professor will recognize your face. Going to class is only part of the battle. Since most of your work for each class will happen outside of the lecture hall, you need to learn how to manage your educational life successfully, along side your personal life.

Let’s talk about a few essential requirements for managing your life in college.

1. Have a planner of some sort. You cannot trust your brain to keep your schedule for you. Buy a planner, or use Google’s Calendar to keep track of test dates, due dates and anything else you need. The Google Calendar route is probably the most efficient method, for a few reasons. One, it is accessible from your dorm room, on campus and in class (if you bring a laptop). Mistakes can easily be corrected, and it is a visual diagram of where you need to be. I have my Google calendar set to show my schedule of classes, along with any other misc appointments. For the days where I do not have a laptop with me in class, I have a weekly printout of my Google calendar — that way I am never without my trustworthy schedule. Secondly, online calendars can be shared with your family and friends. This is a great thing to do if you are living out of state or away from your family. If they can visually see your schedule, they will be able to know when you are available or which weeks you will be more stressed.

2. Don’t procrastinate. Everyone says this is one of the most important conditions for success in college, and they are right. By using the above calendar idea, you will be able to visually see when things are due and when you have tests. Start assignments early, when it comes time to turn them in you will be happy that they were finished well in advance. The same goes for tests; the earlier you start to study, the less stressed you will feel. Study a little bit every day after class, it will help reinforce what you learned in lecture. The information will seem a lot more familiar when it comes time to review for an exam.

3. Sleep. This is one of the most important aspects of time management. Sleeping restores your body to its normal state of well being. While you sleep, your body reinforces everything that it learned during the day. This is when the vital connections are created in your brain. If you stay up all night before an exam, you are almost guaranteed to do worse on the exam. Your body needs to be well rested in order to do well on an exam.

Planning ahead is a students best friend while in college. Half of the battle is making sure that you have time for every class, and this can be accomplished with a little bit of extra work.

Justin

Tags: Education, exam, planning, school, test, time, time management

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