Time management for college students is essential for them if they want to succeed in college. College life can be some of the most stressful times in your life, although the benefits of college are worth it. College is crucial for a variety of reasons, including long-term financial benefit, employment stability, career fulfillment, and success outside of the workplace. College is also where you meet lifelong friends who also share the same interests as you. In addition, college is where you discover yourself and is an important moment in your personal development.
Why Listen to Me?
I am a…
- current junior in college
- division 1 athlete
- deans list student
- extrovert who enjoys a social and personal life
3 Aspects of Time Management for College Students
Academic Life
Social Life
Personal Life
This focuses on your actual school life. Management of classes, assignments, exams, and study time is important aspect of time management for college students.
The social aspect of time management for college students is centered around your social interactions around campus, outside campus, hanging with friends, and night life.
Your personal life focuses on what you enjoy spending your time doing outside of you school life and social life. For example, hobbies, routines, and lifestyle decisions are all part of the personal life aspects of time management for college students.
Time Management for College Students: Academic Life
Managing your academic life nay be the most important aspect of time management, since you are paying for school. In addition, your academic life consumes a majority of your time at college, so managing this section is key.
3 academic tips:
- Creating a course schedule
- Making an assignment calendar
- Study Habits
Creating a Course Schedule
When creating a course schedule there are some key tips you need to optimize your college experience. First of all, meet with your academic advisor to figure out what courses you need to take. In addition, making your schedule the early is essential, especially if you are a freshman. The importance is because freshman courses fill up faster than the other graduation classes. The longer you wait to register for courses, the more likely the course is full. This is important to know because making a schedule built for you is more difficult if your pool of available classes is small.
By “a schedule built for you”, I am referring to a schedule built around your daily life habits. For example, are you a night owl or do you wake up early? If you tend to stay up later then having a morning class is not the best option for you. With a night owl lifestyle, you might want to your first class between 10am to 1pm. Although, if you a great morning person, having a morning classes to get your lectures out the way is a great way to manage time. A tip I would suggest if possible, try to not have any Friday classes. This compresses your school week, but opens up more time for other things.
Making an Assignment Calendar
Making an assignment calendar is college life hack that makes managing school work easy. The assignment calendar consist of all the; homework, assignments, quizzes, and exams between all your classes. Checking this calendar once or twice a day ensures you know whats going on between all your classes, and it helps you management your time as a college student. Below is a creative commons youtube video on how to use google calendar.
Study Habits Rules
- Take good notes: taking good notes will allow you to learn course content on your own time if you are still struggling with concepts in class. It also prepares you better for course work.
- Do not procrastinate: the sooner you get your work done, the more time you have for your personal and social life
- Try to get an early start on assignments, papers, and projects: the time and stress you save from getting an early start is life saving.
- Do not wait last second to study for exams: minimum try and study a week before any exam. You do not have to study in big increments, you can study a section a day until you know the material.
- Join study groups: it is very helpful to know people in class that you can rely on to help you with coursework
- Try and get work done before the weekend: opens time for social and personal life
Time Management for College Students: Social Life
The importance of managing your social life differs from person to person. Although for a person like me who enjoys socializing and going out, managing where I go out and how much I go out is important. It is essential you get a grip on your academic life so there is time freed up for your social and personal lives. I recommended earlier to finish assignments and homework before the weekend so that you are able to socialize during the weekend without falling behind.
Social life tips:
- Socializing tips
- Scheduling social life
- Knowing campus and city hangout spots
Scheduling Social life
- During study breaks
- In between classes
- During breakfast, lunch, and dinner breaks
- Later in the day when you finish your course material
- During the weekend after you finish the work that needs to be done
Socializing tips
- Talk to your roommates, floor-mates, people that live in your dorm, classmates: you would be surprised how easy it is to connect to the people around you. everyone is feeling the same initial tension and animosity. Freshman orientation is great place to connect with people, since everyone is new to the school.
- Join study groups: understand that study groups are mainly to do school work, but socializing after the work is done never hurts.
- Join clubs: joining clubs brings you around people with the same interests as you.
Hangout spots
knowing the hangout spots for students on campus and off campus is a great way and place to meet people. Usually, the hangout spots on campus consist of; the library, restaurants, houses and dorms. The off-campus hangout spots are a little harder to find although, not to difficult.
Time Management for College Students: Personal Life
This section does not cover how to spend your personal time, but how to manage it and fit it into your schedule. This is necessary because, college at times becomes extremely overwhelming. So spending time doing things you enjoy, is a great stress reliever.
Sanity Rules
These are some rules i’ve came up with for myself, to allow me to stay sane throughout the chaotic life of college
- Personal time at least once a day: spend time doing one of your hobbies at least once a day. Not only does this relax you, but also your personal time feels 10x better after finishing all your school work.
- The 2 hour rule: this may overlap with the earlier rule. Essentially, you will schedule the last 2 hours of your day before you sleep to solely be for whatever you desire to spend your time doing. The reason I do this is because, in no way am I going to fall asleep doing school work, just to wake up and do more school work. Of course there may be exceptions, but this is a general rule.
- Balance spending personal time and getting ahead of school work: there is a key balance to this. The more school work you finish, the more personal time you have, whether it is at the end of the day or the end of the week, or the end of the semester. Although, there is a balance to this.
- Know when to take a break: I will not sacrifice my mental health for grades, and I also do not believe anyone else should sacrifice their mental health for grades.
In Conclusion…
Enjoy your college experience. You will make life time memories and friends while you are here, and it is truly the last time you have before you are thrusted into the “real world”. So all I ask is you enjoy this time and find yourself. In addition, Sharing this with your friends, and give them the tips I have given you.
Frequently Asked Question about Time Management for College Students
Benefits of Time Management for College Students?
There are many benefits to learning time management skills as a college student. Time Management allows you to be organized in your school tasks. In addition, you will have more free time to do non-school activities, because it eliminates most of the procrastination from your college life and can even get you ahead. This is important because procrastination could literally take away, hours, days, even weeks that you could use as your free time. Furthermore, you will not have assignments and deadlines hanging over your head, because you would have already done it in a reasonable time before the due date. Overall, there are many benefits of time management for college students.
How Do You Limit Distractions?
Limiting distractions depends on the type of person you are. If you are a social person, try avoiding doing homework in an environment with lots of people. If you are a person that needs music to focus, then throw your head phones on. In general, when you identify something that stops you from getting what you need to complete done, then try and cut it off or at least avoid it. For example, I personally set break times for every hour I do work. This is generally a 10-15 minute break, unless I am extremely focused, which then I would not opt for a break.
Is College Hard
College is not easy, but I would not say it is hard unless you are shooting yourself in the foot. Colleges understand the difficulty of college, that is why they offer so many resources like tutoring or workshop seminars. If you have an assignment due, then try it early, so that if you have questions you could seek out resources. If you put it until the last minute, no one will feel sorry for you. You get the results from the work you put in.
