Finding time with your crazy busy college schedule can be tricky. With classes multiple times a day, meetings, homework, sometimes sports practices, it’s hard to even find the time to sit down and eat a meal.
As a sophomore now, I’ve got a couple of semesters of practice under my belt and I’m here to share my best tips on how to manage your time and be your most productive self in college.
1. Spreadsheets!
Something I tried for the first time this semester was making a cumulative spreadsheet on Excel with all of the due dates in all of my classes. It definitely took a good chunk of time but one by one I wrote the assignment title in one column and the due date next to it. I even color-coded each assignment by class. Now, your dates are going to be out of order, so you’re going to want to highlight every cell (assignments AND due dates), right-click (or control-click), and ‘sort oldest to newest’. Now you should have a rainbow-looking spreadsheet with all of your due dates. This trick has helped me stay on top of my classes and plan when I need to start working on upcoming assignments.
2. Plan, plan, plan!
I’m sure you have heard a dozen times that investing in a planner is a must for college. Electronically planning works too! Notes app, Google Docs, whatever floats your boat. The first step is writing down what you want to get done for the day (any homework assignments, chores, or appointments and meetings you have that day). As the day goes on, cross tasks off your list as you complete them. You can take this a step further by color-coding according to specific classes or after-school activities to stay extra organized.
If you’re an extreme Type A person (like me) and you like to plan out your entire day, as in, when you will wake up, go to each class, start your homework, finish your homework, go to the gym, to bed, and literally everything else in between, creating a Google Calendar may be perfect for you. On there, I color code my classes, after-school activities, and everything else. I even have the app on my phone so that I get notifications to remind me before one of my calendar events begins.
3. Reward yourself!
A strategy I have been using more recently is giving myself rewards for getting things done. Whether I studied really hard for a big test and got an A or I simply just made it through a super tough week, I promise myself some kind of reward. For me, going to get my nails done, buying a new piece of clothing, or ordering a nice dinner are forms of rewards I use to entice myself. A relaxing bubble bath and face mask is one I miss, now that I no longer have access to a bathtub.
But don’t stop there! You can reward yourself for smaller tasks, too! I am a super active person; I love going to the gym but sometimes I don’t have the time to work out because I have too much homework after classes. Those days, if I finish enough homework, I will reward myself with a workout, whether that be a walk outside to enjoy the weather or a trip to the Stewart Fitness Center.
All that said, you still may have days where you aren’t as productive as you hoped you’d be. I have those days too, and the best advice I can offer when you experience it is to wake up the next day prepared to get as much done as you can. A few other small tips for getting a lot of work done in a short amount of time is setting timers on your phone: 50 minutes on, 10 minutes off. Take it a step further and turn your phone off entirely – those pesky things are always distracting us. Try not to get too caught up in due dates… everything will get done, but only if you create the right habits to be productive.