Whether you are a high school student or a college student, time management is crucial for academic success. Here are a few free tips that will help you learn to manage your time adequately.
* Minimize after-school activities. While it may be fun to be the president of four different clubs, be involved in every theatrical production and still have time for choir practice, it will suck up any time you may need for studying or other activities. Extra-curricular activities are great to beef up your resume, but, unless you are truly committed to these activities, cut down on them.
* Plan your study time. If you can, treat your academic career as you would a job. Devote eight to nine full hours to your academics five days a week. From 8 to 5 every day, go to class, study or work on projects for school. If you do this, you will have more time on weeknights and on the weekends to devote to social activities and extra-curricular activities. It will also keep you from procrastinating on studying for tests or working on projects.
* Maintain a calendar or day planner to plot out your daily schedule. Also keep track of upcoming tests or project due dates. You can set up your studying schedule for upcoming quizzes or tests or plan different phases of a project that may be due.
* Allot entertainment time for yourself. All work and no play could drive anybody crazy. We all need some time to unwind, so give yourself a few hours a week or during the weekend for you to spend doing one of your favorite hobbies or for you to spend with friends.
* Always carry course material to read between classes or during lunch or while at the doctor’s office. You probably have a lot more downtime like this than you may realize. If you did this, say, twenty minutes a day, this study time would definitely add up. That would be an extra hour and forty minutes towards your studying every week.
* You may need to have a job while going to school. Make sure this job does not interfere greatly with your normal studying time or class time.
* Everybody has a different way of studying that is ideal for him/her. Some are audio learners, so they retain much of what the teacher or professor said during a lecture. Others are more visual and need to see charts or diagrams or re-read their notes nightly. Figure out what is ideal for you, whether that be studying with a group of other students or re-typing your notes on note cards and reviewing those. This will save you a lot of time in the future when studying for tests.
* One of the habits of successful people is a to-do list. Every morning, make yourself a to-do list and, on it, include everything you need to get done that day, from the most minuscule task (like taking out the trash) to the biggest (finishing up an 8 page paper).
* Take a course on speed reading or shorthand. It may sound silly, but if you can get through those chapters a few hours earlier, that’s less studying time.
* Never ever miss a class unless absolutely necessary. Attending class is an effective way to review concepts, since you’ll have both audio (your teacher or professor lecturing) and visual learning. Missing class gives you twice the work as you will be spending most of your time trying to play catch-up and figuring out what you missed.
