9 Time Management

I, being a life-long, chronic procrastinator myself, can fully sympathise with any student who feels there’s just not enough hours in the week L!  Trying to balance college, study, family life, work and (some might say, most importantly) socialising can feel like an over-whelming task if you don’t have some system to manage your time effectively.  Inefficient time management will lead to at least one or more of these areas being neglected.  There are a multitude of on-line resources aimed at helping students utilize their time fully, and to stay on top of their course work.
  

You need to prioritise tasks and assignments in terms of importance and urgency.  The implementation of Moodle has been extremely helpful in keeping track of assignment “due dates”, but some lecturers do not use this programme.  Marking due dates on a calendar, making your own time schedule (or whatever works for you), will help remind you of the time limits imposed.  Try to get the assignment or task finished a day or two early, as this will give you time to thoroughly proof read and check your work, references etc.

Breaking daunting or in-depth tasks down into manageable “bite-sized chunks” will make the whole process easier.  If you actually catalogue how you fill each day, you may be surprised to find how much valuable time is wasted (for me it’s daydreaming, and watching bad TV).  A great piece of advice is to make use of “dead-time”, i.e. time between classes can be used to revise key points, and bus journeys can provide time to look over lecture notes.