USING TIME EFFECTIVELY

An overwhelming number of students identify time management as the reason for their academic success or failure.  Setting priorities and goals, balancing academic life with your social life, and finding time for sleeping, eating, exercising, and working along with studying is an essential aspect of managing your stress effectively.

Time Management

Managing your time effectively can help you cope with your stress by feeling more in control, having a sense of accomplishment, and having a sense of purpose in your life.  Establishing good time management habits can take 2 to 3 weeks.

  By using specific systems, even the most disorganized person can make their lives less chaotic and stressful.

Assess Your Habits

The first step is to analyze how you are spending your time.  When is your more productive and least productive time of day or night?  Do you tend to underestimate how long something will take you to complete?  Do you waste time or allow interruptions to take you off the task?  Carrying a notebook with you for a week and writing down how you spend your time might provide you with some insight into the answers to these questions and how you spend your time.  You might find that you’ve been devoting most of your time to less important tasks.  Perhaps it is tempting to do your laundry rather than to start writing that term paper, but this is probably not the best use of your time.

Use a Planner

Keeping a daily planner to schedule your time is the next step in managing your time more effectively.  First block off all of the activities that are consistent, regular, weekly activities such as attending classes, eating meals, sleeping, going to meetings, exercising, and working.  Then look at the open, available time remaining.  Schedule regular study time, relaxation time, and free time.  Remember to schedule your study time during the more productive part of your waking hours.  When you have a 1-hour block of time, what can you realistically get done in that time?  This may be a good time to review your notes from class, pay bills, or get some reading done.

Set goals and prioritize

It is advisable to set goals for the week as well as for each day.  If something unexpected interferes with your time schedule, modify your plans but don’t throw out the entire schedule.

Making a to-do list can be helpful, but it is only the first step.  Breaking the larger tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces and then prioritizing them is the key to effective time management.  When you prioritize tasks, it is beneficial to use the “ABC” method of task management.  The A tasks are those items that are most urgent and must be done today.  Then the B tasks are those things that are important but, if need be, could wait 24 hours.  The C tasks are activities that can easily wait a few days to a week.  Don’t fall into the C trap which is when you do the less important tasks because they are quick and can be checked off your list with ease.  This can lead to procrastinating the more important A activities, leaving them until you feel stressed and overwhelmed.

Procrastination

Procrastination means postponing something that is necessary to do to reach your goal.  Putting things off a common problem that plagues students and can cause stress.  A survey of college students found that approximately 23% of students said they procrastinated about half of the time and 27% of students said they procrastinated most of the time.  Procrastination is also different from indecision, as people can make a decision but have trouble implementing their decisions.

Typically there is a psychological aspect to procrastination as we tend to delay doing things we don’t want to do.  Emotions such as anxiety, guilt, and dread often accompany thinking about the task.  By putting the dreaded activity off, you can temporarily alleviate your anxiety and discomfort, and this is a reinforcing aspect of procrastination.  In the short term, procrastination seems like a good solution and helps you to feel better.  However, in the long run, procrastinating activities usually leads to bigger problems and more work.  For example putting off paying your bills may feel good in the moment, but when your electricity is turned off and you have to pay late fees, and your roommates are upset with you because they thought you had paid the bill, your pleasurable feelings soon turn sour.

Many people who procrastinate report feeling overwhelmed and highly anxious.  They have difficulty tuning out external stimulation and concentrating on the task at hand.  They also worry about how their performance will be judged by others and have perfectionistic standards for themselves.  Students who procrastinate tend to perform less well and retain less than students who do not.

Some techniques for combating procrastination involve time management, stress management, assertiveness training, and increasing self-esteem and self-acceptance.  Procrastinators tend to both over- and underestimate how much time a task will take.  When they underestimate the time, they feel justified in procrastinating because they erroneously believe they have plenty of time to complete the task.  When they overestimate the time needed, they feel intimidated by the magnitude of the job, feel anxious, and so have trouble getting started.  Most students explain that their anxiety stems from a fear of failure or being evaluated.  Sometime their anxiety manifests itself because they don’t understand the material  or what the instructor is wanting but are afraid to ask for clarification.

People also report procrastinating when they feel forced or pressured to do something they don’t want to do.  Rather than communicating assertively, they rebel by agreeing to do something but constantly put it off, which can be a passive-aggressive way of behaving.  They fear the consequences of saying no or not fulfilling their obligations, but are also angry about what they perceive as unfair expectations and demands on them.  This is where some assertiveness training may be helpful.  Finally, increasing self-esteem can solve problems with procrastination as feeling better about yourself relieves you of worrying about what others think of you and having to prove yourself to them constantly.  Some procrastinate because they think they need to do everything perfectly or not at all.  With increased self-esteem, you are more accepting of mistakes and don’t expect yourself to perform perfectly.