Use These 5 Time Management Techniques to Improve Your Grades
Time management is an important part of every student's life. Proper time management is important to academic success. It is important to use these techniques to be able to succeed in an academic environment. By the way, if you haven't seen our article on reducing academic stress I highly recommend you take a look at it first. Time is a valuable asset, and don't take my word for it, see the quote below if you don't believe me.
“Time is what we want most but what we use worst.” – William Penn
What is time management?
Time management is where you organize all your tasks and plan out your activities. It is an important skill to have not only at school but at workplaces. It teaches us to do the common thing people call "working smarter, not harder". It is one of the most important skills to learn because it involves scheduling and getting the most out of your limited time. You will be able to get a lot more done in a short amount of time. It's important to remember that this requires practice and that even I struggle with managing my time.
Steps to better manage your time
Now that I've shown you what time management is, let me give you a few examples of managing your time properly. We've discussed the importance of time management in our article about avoiding sleeping in class which you should check out if you struggle with that. Now let's get onto the 5 steps for better time management:
1. Prioritize
The first step to making sure you have better time management is to prioritize your tasks. Do what's important first before you move on to the less important things. Know what's important right now, rather than later. Keep your priorities straight and you will be able to find which tasks are necessary and which aren't. A good way to do this is to sort them by the due date first and deem how appropriate they are. Late assignments should be prioritized, as well as assignments due the exact next day. This is the first step for ensuring good time management among students.
2. Avoid procrastination
Procrastination is one of the biggest ways we struggle to manage our time. It can take away essential amounts of time which forces us to squeeze things into short time frames and as a result, lowers the quality of our work. When you're procrastinating something huge, break it up into easier parts. When you complete each task, keep going. This will make it easier and less intimidating for you. If you have a huge English essay, break it up into each paragraphs and give yourself a reward for completing each paragraph.
3. Get rid of distractions
There are many common distractions when you're studying. Choose a good area to study where you won't be surrounded by many distractions. Especially if you have ADHD this can be a serious problem. Distractions will reduce efficiency and time. Instead, I recommend listening to music if possible, and keeping your eyes on your assignment the majority of the time.
4. Use software
Nowadays, there are a lot of time management solutions and software available. You can use notes and your calendar to create and mark special events. You can also download time management apps from the app store if you think it will help. Using to-do lists is a great way to start, use an app like Taskade if you want to do that. You can also use your notes app or the reminder app on iOS. Taskade is very useful because you can make multiple folders and separate between classes. You also have several planning templates to choose from. Below is the plan for a school day I made using Taskade.
5. Make a schedule
Below is an example of the process of the scheduling process. It consists of a priority list and a time log. The priority list is from when we mentioned prioritizing. The time log ensures that we are held accountable for our work. Please note that this is an extremely shortened example that you should expand upon because you may use multiple days. This method is extremely useful if you prefer writing things down in notebooks or on documents instead of using todo software.
With these time management techniques, you will experience an academic life stress-free and efficient. It's important to remember that these things will not come overnight, time management takes practice and a lot of determination. But once you do it, you will realize that you can succeed a lot more in your work and produce the best work efficiently.
Find an issue with this article? Message us at [email protected] to report it!
Links provided in this article may be affiliate links, and we may receive financial compensation for purchases made through the links.
