As college students, we’ve all heard about how important time management is, and I am sure most of us would agree it is easier said than done. But learning how to manage your time can be really helpful in avoiding feeling overwhelmed and exhausted by everything on your plate. Tina, one of our peer educators, agrees and has outlined some strategies on how to get better at time management below!
Time Management: Get Used to it Get Better at it!
By: Xinru “Tina” Wang
As college students, there is no doubt that we are facing ongoing instructions and requirements that we just need to keep track of. When it comes with other mandatory activities, including but not limited to work, volunteering, internships and family responsibilities, things will start to feel overwhelmed. Consequently, this urgent feeling in us can eat our motivation up, thus impact the whole working process to be even more challenging. It is indeed significant to recognize that more than anything that may happen in our lives, we need to care for ourselves first! As a current senior trying to get through all the graduate school applications plus school works and many other responsibilities, I would love to share with y’all about some specific strategies for managing your daily times.
First of all, learn to give yourself a break according to your schedules. No matter it is science or literature that you are studying, giving yourself a break can mean more than a chance of allowing the brain to rest; a lot of things you didn’t have the time to care about can be taken care of, and with an opened brain, you get to try much more possible ways to support yourself and manage your time. Such time is definitely valuable. Based off my personal experience, I would recommend to have at least a day of a whole week to be completely free. Though, it is to say that we all have different ways of coping stress and setting up our working schedules. Find a way that fits you! 😀
Another coping method that you probably might have already heard of, and/or maybe you are already sick of hearing this, is to have a planner! I recognize that for many students, just as how I was before, felt that having planner is like an additional step to work. Obviously, why is it to have a planner if I can just remember my assignments and due dates? Well, for many of us out there, planner can serve not ONLY a tool to check for the deadlines, but it is also for you to feel that sense of “I am keeping track of everything”, and provide you a chance to compliment yourself. With the level of stress, it is likely that we immediately move on to the next assignment after the completion of the previous one, forgetting to see how much we have done. To see it this perspective, planner will definitely help! Some strategies I find useful when using the planners are:
Use different colored pens for different subjects
MARK DOWN ALL THE UPCOMING HOLIDAYS 😀
Don’t forget to write down all the fun things you did, like going to a movie
Checkmarks after the work is done! Just so you know how much you have done for yourself! 😀
I hope you find this passage helpful! Stay proud and take care!