One of the biggest issues I dealt with while in college was time management. Coming into college, figuring out my time was pretty difficult but as time went on, it started becoming easier for me. Of course, it took some time since I was always dealing with different class loads or extracurriculars. I felt like I never had time to actually do my readings and take notes because it was too time consuming. I would sleep very late from doing my homework and studying. I would also sleep in a lot which took away from the time I could be doing homework. Once I went into my second quarter, I was taking one extra class so I knew I had to focus more on school and figure out my timing better. Here are some of the things I did which helped me manage my time properly.
- Wake up early
Despite this being very tiring, it actually helps to get a lot of things done. I know many times when I am up early, I can finish my work by around 2pm which leaves me with a lot of free time to myself where I don’t necessarily have to be doing anything. It also gives me more time to do my homework and be productive.
- Make a list
This is kind of like a planner in a sense since I am listing everything in a chronological order. This allows me to know which deadlines are coming up first and which work I need to focus on first and which I can hold off on. This makes planning things much easier since I know which deadlines are coming up first and it makes it harder to procrastinate. Additionally it just allows me to stay more organized when planning out my schedule since I know when I will be busy and when not.
- Study/do school work during free time
This allows me to keep myself busy when I’m bored and feel like I have nothing to do. Many times after constantly watching netflix shows, I tend to get bored of them and ao many times I will just be relaxing in my room doing nothing. By doing my work during this time, I am being productive and allowing myself to later have the freetime to do nothing rather than procrastinating on my work and having to stress about it later. Many times after doing this I tend to actually enjoy doing my work since I am doing it in my spare time and it no longer feels like a chore I need to do.
These are some of the things I did throughout my college years to manage my time better. Despite it being something I have worked on for a couple of years, I do have some slips here and there where I either don’t wake up early to do my work or I just procrastinate, but at least I manage to get my work in on time. This is something that I will always keep working on and hopefully someday it will be easier to do despite the amount of things on my plate.