Do you often find you have problems meeting deadlines or commitments? Are you always wishing for a few more hours in the day? Managing your time successfully while you are at college is an important tool that can mean the difference between success and failure in school, work, and your personal endeavors. By learning how to manage time more effectively, you will be able to meet deadlines, achieve more, reduce stress, and live a more balanced and productive life.
Being away in college can be the first time you have had to completely manage your own time. In making decisions such as setting class schedules, studying, working, and having leisure time, is important to develop your own style of time management. However, a number of techniques can help.
- Define academic, social and personal goals.
- Set priorities.
- Find out how you currently use your time; keep an activity log for a week.
- Learn how to schedule using a master schedule.
- Compile a daily "to do" list.
- Be assertive; learn to say "NO."
- Delegate responsibility when possible.
- Be sure to reward and allow yourself personal time and social time.
Time management techniques are important tools, but you also need to be aware of attitudes that can work against managing your time. If you are overly demanding of yourself to the point that you eventually give up on your goals, or you habitually put things off, then you may be a perfectionist or a procrastinator. If you see yourself in either of these roles, or you are having difficulty managing your time, call Counseling and Career Services at 256-782-5475 for an appointment.
Courtesy of University of Alabama
