Being a student, you might find that balancing between studying, socializing, and sleeping is hard. There are also periods when it seems that there is not enough time for everything. If this is where you find yourself right now, don’t be quick to shorten your sleep or let yourself get swamped.
Instead, read this article and discover some tips that will help you make the most of your day. These tips represent some of the most important steps toward efficient time management. And this is a skill that one definitely needs in a modern world.
Plan & Prioritize
Time management is about planning and organizing time in such a manner that enables you to perform more tasks while spending fewer hours on it. To manage time effectively, it is necessary to set priorities. You have to identify the most important tasks that you need to finish in the first place.
For example, imagine that you need to write an essay, but there is a more urgent assignment to do. If you are a student, you might want professionals from essaywriterservice.com to save some time and energy for a more important task. And you will definitely need those for further studies.
Another important and relevant to setting priorities thing is keeping it real. Instead of trying to do the impossible, create a to-do list, and keep track of all the specific tasks that you need to do. Remember to tick off your list of the ones that you’ve already done — it will surely bring you a burst of joy.
Besides, to have a better track of the 24 hours per day at your disposal, you might need to learn to schedule your time. For this, after you have listed and prioritized all the tasks, you should roughly estimate the time that it will take you to finish each of them. Then, you can either try to visualize the schedule in handwriting or use one of the existing time management apps.
Set Specific Goals
If your Priority #1 for today is to continue working on a project, try to convert this goal into a measurable one. To continue with the writing example, specify how many pages or words you plan to produce exactly. This way, you’ll have an opportunity to see if you have actually reached the goal, and in case you haven’t, you’ll get motivated by seeing how close you’ve come.
SMART is one of the most popular and useful techniques in this regard. The acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic/Relevant, and Timely/Time-bound. The principle is that the goals that you set should fall within the mentioned criteria.
The SMART goal framework is useful because it helps to see what, how, and by what time you need to do. With this technique, you can achieve even the most challenging goals, as it presents you with the way to organize and structure the whole process.
It might be helpful to think about goals as road signs. They should definitely be clear to show you the right way and ensure that you end up at the desired destination.
Turn Push Notifications Off
It goes without saying that to get as many things done as possible in a limited amount of time, it is necessary to stay focused. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about distractions? It’s your smartphone and the myriad of notifications that different apps send you per day, right?
Let’s face it, to get everything done on time, you need to overcome FOMO and turn off all the notifications that keep you more distracted than updated. Otherwise, you might lose around 23 minutes, as you will need this amount of time to get back to the task at hand.
And even if you only heard the sound of notification but didn’t pick up the phone to check it, it still counts as a distraction – ass any audible notification does.
Take Breaks
A secret ingredient to this ambitious recipe for getting everything done on time is taking short breaks at least every one hour.
Intuitively, you might think that these breaks are the last thing you need in order to complete today’s to-do list. However, they are actually necessary for you to recharge and keep your productivity up. When taking a break, you can ask for help in doing your work, so click here to see how you can get help and not to feel the guilt.
Taking a break will not only help you stretch your legs, but it will also save you from being bored stiff. Moreover, after a short break, you’ll be able to get back to the task with a fresh mind and, hopefully, a new perspective or an insight.
A good idea might be to exercise while taking a break from studying. Staying active could actually improve attention and memory skills. The combination of learning and exercising, in fact, boosts intellectual performance.
Take Care of Your Mental Well-being
Some of the most fearsome enemies that you might encounter on your way to successful time management are psychological. Think about procrastination, anxiety, or fear of failure. They leave you with even less energy to keep trying to balance between different time-consuming spheres of your life. Sounds emotionally draining, doesn’t it?
This is why it’s important to be aware of your emotional state and practice meditations. They can help you stay focused and cool, both while managing your daily routine and while preparing for the exams.
Such exercises might also help you spend less energy while trying to focus. And this is completely natural when you do something that you don’t find particularly entertaining.
Wrapping Up
No matter the reasons that make you want to manage your time, the above-mentioned tips will certainly come in handy. They will help if you have plenty of assignments to complete within a short period of time. And the same goes for those who want to cope with their daily routine tasks without stressing out too much.
Remember to plan and set priorities, state SMART goals, take breaks and take care of your emotional state. This way, you will learn how to manage not only your time but the way you live, gain new insights, and deal with any kind of stress.
