Saturday, May 28, 2011

Time Management Tips for a College Student

Time Management Tips for a College Student

If you have problems on deadlines and commitments or sometimes you wish for a twenty-fifth hour in a day or for an eighth day in a week, then do not worry because you are not alone.  However, you can still do something on that most valuable resource which is Time.

You can never regain time once you lost it.  In order to develop and advance in your personal life, you should wise in using your time.  By the time you get old you could always go back and reminisce about your beautiful memories and activities.  Always bear in mind that a well-spent time is more valuable than gold.  Time management is a very vital instrument that can help you in achieving success in school, job and other personal undertakings.

Normally, what comes to our mind when we speak about time management?  Maybe, the executive who is so busy or owners of small business who are stressed out.  Or a soccer mom who has a van filled with kids. It is somewhat possible that all of these will come to your mind.  Nonetheless, have you taken into consideration that a college student will fall into this group?  It is indeed true.  A college student is not exempted from such situation.

Let us consider the lifestyle of a typical college student.  A college student is still very young in mind and heart, enjoys a social life which is so challenging, still learning the ins and outs of business ccomplishment.  As a college student you are supposed to manage your schedule properly, attend classes, study the lessons, do your homework, and perhaps perform a part time job, an active participation in extra curricular activities.  A college student will always find time to be with friends, and family.

With all these responsibilities, the college student will find it difficult to manage especially at a young age.  Balancing the rigid schedule will be impossible for a college student to do it.  Remember that if a college student will have inappropriate time management, then it will have lasting effects as shown by the failure of grades.  Hence, the necessity of time management.

Actually, time can not be managed.  You can not slow down the time nor to make it faster or produce it.  Man exists in time and space.  Time management is when you are able to manage your self by making use of the its basic principles.  Self management will make time not as an opponent, but as a friend.

There are some benefits you could gain from time management.  First, you will be able to have more accomplishments.  Second, you will be able live an ordered life.  Third, there will be more extra time.  Fourth, you will be able to meet deadlines.  Fifth, procrastination will be overcome.  Sixth, the reduction of stress.

Although, time management is a common necessity, this is one of the features wherein we do not have a standard which will be applied for everybody.  The time management for a student in college is very much different from the time management for a worker in the office, soccer mom, or an owner of a business.

The primary element for the success of a college career is surely a good quality of   time management.  It is very basic for you as a college student to be wise in making schedules and how to manage the time. 

Say for example, you fail to meet deadlines and important appointments.  There will lead to conflicts and complications to your social and academic endeavors.  Of course, you will experience more frustrations, guilt, anxieties and other horrible feelings.

It is necessary for you to have a clearer idea on how you spend your time, before you manage your time.  There are several time management tips for a college student.

·  Follow strictly your daily plan, whatever your new schedule will turn into a habit. 

·  You should plan in order that your schedule will be organized.

·  There should be proper listing of your short and long term goals.

·  Take into account the best time for you to be more productive.

·  You should study first the more difficult subjects.

·  In order to maximize your effective performance, you should combine activities.

·  Spare time must be used properly.

·  Be true to yourself and allot some time to talk with yourself.

·  Make it a habit to say no, when you are supposed to say NO to somebody.

·  Avoid being a perfectionist

·  You should know how to do away with distractions and interruptions

·  There is always a time for everything.

·  Avoid the habit o postponing things which can bed done now.

·  In everything you do, you should be properly organized.

·  Be calm always.

·  Be a fast reader and selective.

·  Develop the habit of questioning everything that is included in your list to do.

·  Make use of a calendar for your schedule.

Check out my other guide on Calendar Time Management for Working Students
Please leave a comment at Time Management Tips for a College Student if you found this helpful.

College Students’ Time for Study and New Friends - Balance Them Out Nicely

College Students’ Time for Study and New Friends - Balance Them Out Nicely

College students really have a time of their lives during their university or college years. It is a time when there is a whirlwind of activity, piles of obligations and responsibilities and an advent of fresh faces and personalities to meet.

Do not think that once you become a college student you are deprived of making new friends in favor of study and work. If your goal in life is to successfully finish your college degree and become a professional in the career you chose, then it is doubly important to gain new acquaintances. These new associations will be a great help in achieving your goal.

First, new college friends are the ones who would primarily understand the pressure you are going through. They can be a great help when it comes to sharing lecture notes and project perspectives. They can also introduce you to new activities, which will serve as stress busters.

While your old friends are worth treasuring and still on hand for traditional activities you have shared over the years, new friends in college will pave new avenues for much improved college social life.

However, this does not mean that you will have to spend the whole lot of your time hanging out on social functions with them. Between your goal of making good as a college student and meeting new friends, you need a good time management plan in order to keep track of your foremost responsibilities.

We all know that new friends mean new social commitments, another addition to your college class schedules, important dates and other social functions with old friends. Sometimes, if you fail in efficiently setting up a time management plan, you might find yourself drifting off from one social activity to the next. It will get that way  until it time gets too crowded to permit more time for browsing lecture notes and reading materials, accomplishing your projects and reviewing for exams.

Indeed, the advent of new friends for college students may mean incessant interruptions and sets awry your carefully planned schedule.

Here are several time management tips to prevent you from heading off to the destructive path of carelessness and jovial abandon.

1.  Use a time chart as a tool in finding the best time for different types of activities. Since as a college student, you have a unique time management challenge in certain portions of your schedule, you also need to have a more disciplined time management tracking. One feature of the uniqueness of your schedule is the fixed classes and ample free time in between each. Rest is also much wide open, allowing you to commit to other social endeavors with friends.

As a college student, you can avoid getting swamped up with not-so-important commitments by having a time chart to help you add some additional structure to your schedule. You can base this time chart according to the different time and different types of activities.

The time chart will help you discover your peak times for mental concentration and studying. You will have to schedule study hours for your most difficult classes during these peak times.

Once you have written this off in your chart, you will know that you cannot be available for any other activity. You can decline politely from invitations by new college friends, then.

Maintaining a time chart can also help you balance your schedules. Avoid focusing much of your time just studying and not getting out of your way to make new friends. As much as possible a proper balance of study and leisure is needed to keep your mind and body alert and receptive to learning.

2.  Do not indulge yourself in a common time management problem called, over-choice. College students can choose among many different activities.

Understandably, it is natural to become more inclined in a certain activity though it does not have significance whatsoever on gaining your goal in life. Even if it would mean meeting new friends, things that will cause you to lose priority are not good.

3.  Remember that every time you take on something, like going out with your new friends to an excessive degree, you are automatically rejecting everything else you could have done with that time.

That’s why, aside from over-choice, guard against over-commitment and the overwhelming attempt to do too much.

Your college life as a student can effectively function if there is a significant amount of interaction with new friends. Nevertheless, do not overdo yourself. Remember the important time management tips and balance your commitments according to what is necessary to achieve your ultimate goal in life.

Check out my other guide on Calendar Time Management for Working Students
Please leave a comment at College Students’ Time for Study and New Friends - Balance Them Out Nicely if you found this helpful.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Tips for an Effective Time Management Skill for a College Student

Tips for an Effective Time Management Skill for a College Student

Have you ever wondered why you are cramming every time your final examination is nearing? Your choir group is having a practice on Friday afternoon and at the same time, you and your classmates will have a group study at the same day.

What will you prioritize? Difficult, but it is the reality among college students today.

Time management is a vital factor in fulfilling a successful college career. It is a well-known fact that college life is full of surprises—tons of homework and projects, almost endless examinations, and other things with regard to studying.

If do not use effective time management skills, you will have quite a hard time organizing different appointments and commitments.

Unlike in your high school classes before that you are dealing with the same subject matter every day, most college classes do not meet on a daily basis.

There will be times that your next class is due for another 2 to 3 hours, so you still have time to play a game of Frisbee. If you have habits like that, always watch out for the time, or else your college life will end up sooner than you have expected.

Here are the following tips to help you maximize the use of your time dealing with different activities and at the same time minimize your stress level.

Tip No.1: Use a time chart.

In time management, time chart is always recommended. It helps to find the best time for different types of activities you will engage in. College students have a unique time management challenge in particular portions of their schedule that are fixed and with lots of free time in between.

It will help you to add some additional structure to your schedule based on the times that you think is best suited for different activities.

For instance, you can set studying some mathematical and design problems during your free time in between two light subjects. Not only you have managed your activities, you are also keeping your mind away from possible stress that you may acquire.

It also adds more balance to your schedule. Some students focus too much on studying and forgetting other types of activities like sports, recreation, and social events.

Tip No.2: Prioritize

Prioritizing is one of the most common time management problems. Deciding what activities must be done first or second is difficult, especially when all of these activities are all you priorities.

It is essential for college students to select and prioritize the activities they want to spend their time with.

In case that you cannot figure out which must be prioritized, here are the guides that you can refer to. Knowing your priorities will help you fix your schedule much better.

• Reward: Ask yourself what things give you the greatest joy. As you sort through your personal priorities, look on the aspect of personal fulfillment.

You will find that there is satisfaction in doing what you are gifted. In other words, do the things that you think will give you something good in the end.

• Requirement: When you feel plagued by obligations, all you have to do is to stop first and try to sort out your "must dos" from your "choose to dos”.

It is a well-known fact that you have obligations. Certainly, you are not asked to perform all the obligations in this world. Ask yourself what are the things that you are required to do.

• Results: When sorting your priorities, ask yourself if what things that gives you favorable results in return. Spend most of your time working in things of your greatest strength.

You will not waste your time and effort in doing something that you know will not give you the favorable result that you want.

College is a great time to have experiment with new things. Setting priorities will help you balance these new experiences with focus for the things that really matter to you.

Tip No.3: Be careful with over-commitment and attempting to do too much.

Exerting too much effort on a certain activity can lead to excessive stress, pressure, and eventual burnout. Remember that when you take on something, you are declining everything else that you could have done with that time.

Tip no.4: Write things down.

The habit of writing things down using an effective time management system will help you remember even the smallest detail of your activity especially during your classes.

Avoid memorizing. Our brain is just like a recordable compact disc wherein a new recording will erase everything previously recorded.

Enjoy your college life. Use your time management skills and get rid of messy schedules.

Check out my other guide on Calendar Time Management for Working Students
Please leave a comment at Tips for an Effective Time Management Skill for a College Student if you found this helpful.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Calendar Time Management for Working Students: A Necessity

Calendar Time Management for Working Students: A Necessity

At last you are now in college! Only a few more years and the career you have been dreaming to achieve for years is already within your grasp.

However, the path is not easy and wreath with beds of roses. Lack of financial means to pay for your tuition, books and other necessary expenses can be an aspect to make your college student life miserable. Of course, you can get a part time job to and support yourself, but it will be precious time away from your studies.

You need accomplish also other college activities in successfully finishing your course. Not with standing old and new friends which will surely invite you to social events.

Well then, you need to hone up your time management skills and draw up a time management calendar. Having a Calendar of your activities will help you get through the difficulty of balancing your time between study and work, extra-curricular and social activities with friends.

More and more State Universities and Community Colleges are aware of the fact that college students have to work in order to survive and finance their college education. Because of this insight, these schools adjust their class schedules to meet every student’s needs.

However, administrators and advisors in the office find a hard time of scheduling and managing classes for working college students. This is because there are too many people to schedule and manage and few people to draw up the class schedules.

College working students like you who practice effective time management strategies can be a big help. You can assist university and community colleges administrators in drawing up class schedules that are effective for working students. Professionals at college need your definite schedules so that they can draw up a fair enough class schedules.

You can work out by yourself an efficient time management schedule, which takes into consideration your studies, and part time job schedules. In the end, with an effective time student calendar time management plan, you also save money.

Here is a great method of setting up your calendar of time management schedule:

1.  First off, you must have a semester calendar. Universities and other colleges provide students with blank semester calendars. You can obtain one through online or create one according to your own liking. 

2.  In the semester calendars, enter your class schedules, project due dates, registration dates and other important dates. These important dates may come from your class syllabi and the school timetables provided in their brochures and announcements. Enter each date as you find them into your semester calendar.

Set up your own due dates for each phase of a big project, like term papers and projects. You can also add personal commitments to social and personal events

Maintaining a semester calendar as your time management method will give you a view of what commitments you need to fulfill. It will help you plan before a given schedule. This way, you will avoid last minute disasters.

3.  You can also set up a weekly planner. There are available weekly planners provided by institutions you can obtain them online or get them at the registration office during enrollment. If you want to, you can also buy or create your own.

In the weekly planner, you need to enter your regular class schedule and other obligations on a weekly basis, like work, club or church meetings and assembly.
Make it a point that you insert ample time for review and reading before and following each class lecture you attend.

Take note of it in your planner. If you are wondering the enough time to put in for a review, have a general rule to plan two hours of study for each hour a lecture transpired.

Plan your regular time off from work and school. Enter bed and wake up times in your planner. Meanwhile, for projects, exams and other personal commitments, leave off blank slots

4.  Tally out your weekly planner and semester calendar every Friday night or late afternoon. This will enable you to check out the things you have accomplished for that week and adjust on the activities that you still need to do for the following week.

Incorporating these other commitments can be done by placing them in the blank time schedule you have on your weekly planner. Then add new items you are committed in for the incoming week. Enter new things and schedules as new obligations, commitments and engagements come up.

You can have your weekly planner to check out before saying your affirmation to a commitment or engagement. If you find you have a previous entry on the said date and time, then it is best to turn down the invitation early on.

5.  Every night create a daily "action list" for the following day.  Use your weekly and semester calendar to do this. You can even put in categories to set your priorities straight.

Having a calendar for effective time management will reveal its importance when you reach your goals. The main purpose of maintaining it is that it will help remind you of the key goals you have set forth to achieve.

Please leave a comment at Calendar Time Management for Working Students if you found this helpful.