By Popular Demand: Time Management for High School and College Students
Both high school and college can, in
their own ways, be as challenging as
any job. So as you prepare yourself
for adult life, it's important to
become well-grounded in one of the
most critical aspects of any
successful career: good time
management. Now, you can't really
manage time of course; but you can
manage how you respond to it, and
you can certainly learn how to use
it wisely.
In this article, I'll offers
pointers on how you can put your
limited amount of time to the best
possible use. Not only will
implementing these techniques help
you do better in school while
carving out more time for yourself,
while you're still in school you'll
have a test-bed where you can refine
these methods in anticipation of the
day when you step fully into the
business world.
The Basics of Organization
Before you can maximize the use of
your time, you have to spend some of
it on planning. This isn't difficult
or especially time-consuming, but
you do have to be a little fanatical
about it. It all starts with
implementing a scheduling system,
which can be paper-based,
electronic, or some hybrid of both.
Your next task should be to create a
master schedule for your life. Put
everything on it that you can think
of, starting with the fixed items:
sleep, meals, chores, classes,
tests, upcoming papers, and work
time if you have a job. Next,
estimate how long you think
non-fixed assignments (like research
papers) will take you to complete,
and block off that time on your
schedule. Everything else—favorite
TV shows, extracurricular
activities, a social life—has to be
juggled to fit whatever blanks are
left over.
Review your schedule daily, and
update it at least once a week. When
you do, ask yourself these
questions: "What worked this week,
and what didn't? Did I schedule the
right amount of time for each task?
Which tasks took more time than
expected, and which took less? What
did I forget to plan for?" You can
use what you've learned to plan next
week's schedule.
Your scheduling system is useless if
you refuse to stick to it, so be
tough with yourself. If you'd really
like to go to a basketball game but
you have a math test the next day,
you're going to have to buckle down
and forego the game. It's necessary
to say no to things that you don't
have time for, as over-commitment
can be stressful and damaging.
Another damaging mistake is to skip
sleep so you can get more done,
because you need the rest to perform
at your maximum. While it may seem
the ultimate waste of time, getting
enough sleep actually saves you
time, because you don't have to redo
things that you missed or did poorly
because you were so tired you
couldn't think straight.
One final note: schedule in the
occasional reward, like time with
your friends or a nice dinner. If
you've been following your schedule
religiously, then you deserve it.
Embrace Flexibility
The ability to roll with the punches
is important to any active
individual—and when you're a
student—it can be your best friend.
No matter how carefully you plan
your schedule, the world's not going
to let you follow it point-by-point.
You can't always account for bad
weather, the actions of other
people, or your own health, so it's
critical that you allow for the
unexpected.
Too much rigidity can lead to
indecision and even paralysis if
things don't go just right...and
when did that ever happen? So
schedule a few blocks of free time,
so you'll have buffer periods you
can use to handle the unforeseen. If
nothing happens, great! Now you can
do something fun. On the other hand,
if your calculus teacher suddenly
decides your class needs a quiz the
next day, you'll have time to study
for it without ditching something
else.
Another way to maximize flexibility
is to reclaim every scrap of
unscheduled downtime. If you have to
sit on the bus for an hour every
day, then get some reading done. And
here's another thing that I hesitate
to mention—it’s the reality with
some college classes—you don't have
to focus every second on the
instructor. If he derails onto yet
another story about his wasted
youth, shoot off a couple texts or
emails. This isn't viable in high
school, but you're the boss in
college.
The To-Do List
A good to-do list is the linchpin of
any time management strategy, and
can be used on a variety of
time-scales. However, it all starts
with the daily list, a series of
short-term goals that you want to
accomplish within the next 24 hours.
As a student, the general outline of
your to-do list and the order in
which you accomplish things is
largely predicated by your schedule.
If you're having a history test in
fifth period, that's when it has to
be, no matter how important it is.
The hard part is deciding how to
deal with all the unfixed items,
like that paper that's due in two
weeks, or your household chores.
While you need to make some progress
on all fronts, you also need to
categorize tasks according to their
importance and urgency, and
prioritize them accordingly.
Prioritization—that is, how you
determine what comes first, second,
third, and never—is the essence of
time management. You must focus the
majority of your attention on what's
most important, with any leftover
time spent on your less-pressing
list items.
Your list must also be realistic. If
you have items that aren't pressing
and you just don't have time to do
them today, or your list is simply
too long to handle, then you must be
willing to postpone those extraneous
tasks. Assuming you don't defer them
indefinitely, this isn't
abandonment, just good time
management. And in any case,
abandonment isn't necessarily a
dirty word. If you need to make time
in your schedule, look at the things
that matter least to you (within the
context of your school and home
obligations, of course), and let a
few go.
A good not-to-do list can also help
keep you on track. Simply make a
list of things that steal or waste
productive time, so you know what to
avoid. This will vary from person to
person, but may include things like
Internet gaming, surfing when you
should be working, online chatting,
or checking email too often.
The Importance of Visualization
and Goal-Setting
Planning for the future and setting
goals for getting there is an
important part of any time
management scheme. Your goals can be
big or small. This week, for
example, your biggest goal may be
passing a geology exam next
Wednesday. Then there are the big
ones: if you're still in high
school, your ultimate goal could be
as simple as graduating, but it's
more likely that you're looking
forward to college at least, and
possibly a career in a particular
field. So how do you get there?
Simple enough: look at your life,
and map out the path from where you
are now to where you want to be.
Now, what processes, classes,
organizations, and decisions will
help you achieve that goal? If your
short-term goal is pass a test,
figure out how much you have to
study every day between now and
then, and get with it. If the goal's
a big one, then break it down into
smaller steps with their own
individual objectives, determine
what resources are necessary to
achieve those objectives, and start
working through the milestones one
by one. This helps you set
priorities and calculate how much
time you need to spend on each goal,
which in turn lets you determine
your daily game plan.
Aside from your basic school/career
oriented goals, you can't forget the
other important goals in life.
Social, family, and financial goals
all require a certain level of
attention, and you can't ignore them
if you expect to become a
well-rounded individual. Never lose
sight of your long-term goals in any
of these venues.
Develop a Laser -Sharp Focus
If you want to maximize your
accomplishments, then you need to
know how to focus in like a laser
beam on what's truly important.
Needless to say, this is a big part
of to-do list prioritization, but it
contributes to all aspects of time
management—not least in that it
helps that you get things done in as
little time as possible.
Easily said, right? For many of us,
the hard part is learning how to
focus. So let's take a quick look at
what's required to do that.
First of all, suppress any tendency
you may have to procrastinate.
Procrastination is hurtful, because
rather than focusing on getting
something done, you focus on not
doing it. All this does is make you
feel needlessly bad about yourself.
If the task seems too large to
handle, then break it down into
smaller chunks, set realistic goals
for completion, and tackle them one
at a time.
Next, choose your personal "prime
time," the time of day when you work
the best, and concentrate
exclusively on one task at a time
for a reasonable period: one or two
hours works best for most people. Do
not try to multitask. If you need to
take a break, stop at a logical
stopping point, so you don't lose
focus on something you haven't
finished yet. Whatever the length of
your focus period, be sure to
eliminate any time-wasting
activities, distractions, and
disruptions insofar as possible.
Even if a text, call, Facebook IM,
or email drags you away for just two
minutes, it's going to take a while
to regain the level of focus
necessary to give your task the
concentration it needs.
So turn off your phone and all
computer alerts, especially email
and chat notifications, until you're
done. Studies have shown that just
knowing a message is waiting can
ruin your concentration, even if you
don't answer it right away.
A Note About College vs. High
School
In the preceding sections, I've
outlined the basics required for any
high school or college student to
maximum their limited time. But I'd
be remiss if I failed to point out
that in college, things will be
tougher than ever. You're going to
have to learn to be entirely
self-reliant, because no one's going
to wake you up and demand that you
go to class, or make sure that you
study in the evenings rather than
party. It's all up to you.
And then there's the difficulty
factor. College is much harder than
high school, so it requires a more
Machiavellian application of your
time management skills, especially
if you also work (as many students
do these days). Prioritization
becomes much more important as a
method of triaging your activities,
and you need to be both more
decisive and more willing to let
things go. Experiment as needed with
specialized memory and
organizational methods, or even with
tactics as simple as doing your
homework is classes that require
less direct attention. You don't
have to give up a social life if
you're careful, but do remember that
you're not in college just to have
fun. You're there to prepare for the
rest of your life.
Conclusions
While I can't claim that the
pointers I've outlined here are the
be-all and end-all of good student
time management, they should provide
you with a solid jumping-off point.
And be aware, too, that while I've
discussed these pointers in
sequential style, they're actually
overlapping and intricately
interrelated. You can't really have
a to-do list without having a
schedule in place, and to put
together your schedule, you need to
employ big-picture visualization and
set goals for yourself. You get the
idea. As with most things of this
nature, it's up to you to experiment
and find what works best for you.
This may take a while, but it's very
much worth the effort —and the
time—that you'll put into it.
Make it a productive day! (TM)
(C) Copyright 2011 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.
© 2011 Laura Stack. Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, author, and professional speaker whose mission is to build high-performance productivity cultures in organizations by creating Maximum Results in Minimum Time®. She is the president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., a time management training firm specializing in productivity improvement in high-stress organizations and the 2011-2012 President of the National Speakers Association. Since 1992, Laura has presented keynotes and seminars on improving output, lowering stress, and saving time in today’s workplaces. She is the bestselling author of four books: SUPERCOMPETENT; The Exhaustion Cure; Find More Time; and Leave the Office Earlier. Laura has been a spokesperson for Microsoft, 3M, Xerox, and Office Depot. She is the creator of The Productivity Pro® planner by Day-Timer and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, CNN, and the New York Times. Her clients include Starbucks, Cisco Systems, Wal-Mart, and Bank of America. To have Laura speak at your next event, call 303-471-7401 or visit www.TheProductivityPro.com to sign up for her free monthly productivity newsletter.