Enjoy yourself while achieving your goals

Student life can be hectic, full of responsibilities and deadlines. It is important to pay attention to your time management skills as a student in order to do well academically and maintain a healthy social life.

This blog post will provide tips for managing your time efficiently so that you can have the best experience possible during this period of your life.

Being constantly busy and preoccupied means that we don’t always take the time to notice what we are doing at present. This can be a bad thing because it leaves us open to missing deadlines and forgetting about important events, such as meetings with teachers or people in your residence.

To avoid this from happening, make sure you set aside time each week to plan your schedule. Review what you have coming up and decide which tasks need to be prioritised and what can be postponed.

Reflection

This is also a good time for reflection. Look back on how your schedule went this week, did some activities take more of your time than they should have? Did you find yourself doing something unplanned during your study period? If so, ask yourself if the time spent was valuable, and if so, budget for it in the coming week. if not, remove it from your schedule.

A balancing act

A common problem that arises for students is difficulty in balancing the amount of time you spend studying, with the other commitments such as work or clubs. You may find yourself staying up late into the night trying to finish your homework and then having no energy to attend classes. This is normal but it can lead to a downward spiral whereby lack fo sleep can impact on your ability to concentrate and achieve your study goals.

A solution is to prioritise what you are doing for each block of time. It means that you have decided that spending an hour reading for this subject should be more important than spending one hour browsing Reddit.

Below we’re going to run through the steps you can take to start more effectively managing your time.

Step 1: Make a list

Make a short list of everything you do throughout the week and roughly how long each task takes. Be sure to include:

• Classes
• Study time
• Exercise
• Socialising
• Housework

Step 2: Plan your week

Get a planner or organiser calendar¹ and start by planning what you are going to do in each block of time. How much time have you got? How long does it take to get somewhere, or complete housework? Planning can be done the week before so you know what is expected of yourself for the days ahead.

We find sitting down each Sunday afternoon is a great time to do this.

Step 3: Check your planner upon waking each morning

Stick to your plan, and if need be make adjustments to next week’s plan.

Step 4: repeat for 4 weeks

You’ve now formed a healthy habit of balancing and managing your time effectively. Make sure you give yourself a reward, and don’t forget, student life is fun. Enjoy the social aspect, keep planning and enjoy your study success.