Manage Your Time

Once you get to college, it is important that you manage your time according to your responsibilities and goals. Your success in college will have a lot to do with if you are able to control how much time you waste, avoid procrastination, and make time for studying and homework.

Manage Your Time – Purchase a daily planner to write down all classes, assignments, meetings, social events, and plan out your weekly schedule. Time management is essential to successfully managing college life. Skipping classes, missing assignments, procrastination, and cramming just before an exam are signs that organization is a problem for you. If you need help, check with the college to see if there is a time management workshop available on campus.

Make a Schedule – Unlike highschool many of your assignments will be given to you on a syllabus at the beginning of the semester and will have due dates far out into the future. In addition, the assignments will be unstructured. In other words, you will be responsible to for completing steps A, B, and C, over several weeks in order to complete the final assignment (step D) on the due date. If you do not plan and schedule your time and work tasks, you will be left cramming for tests, spending all-nighters writing research papers, and addicted to caffeine and energy drinks.

Write down your schedule in your daily planner, including time for attending classes, working, studying, eating, recreation, excercising, sports, sleeping, hanging out with friends, etc..

Compare your schedule with the goals and aspirations you have outlined for yourself. Make sure that your schedule matches your goals. For example, if one of your goals is to play guitar in a rock band, your schedule should include practicing guitar. If your top priority is graduating with honors, your schedule should include more study time than time for say a lesser priority.

Study Smarter, Not Harder – Stick to your study schedule and you won’t get behind. Write down each assignment in the same daily planner so when your scheduled study-time hits, you know what assignments require your attention. If there is a large assignments, break it down into smaller tasks and schedule those tasks over the weeks prior to the final due date.

Focus on those tasks that are most important based on priority, due date, importance in terms of your grade, and in terms of your goals. Ignore tasks that can be done later or when you have time.

Find the perfect study niche or create one. Whether it is the quiet corner of the library sitting at a table or desk (with or without headphones) or whether you prefer the beanbag chair and floor of your dorm room. You must find or create a study-place that allows you to concentrate and study effectively.

If you need help or want to touch up on your study skills, check with the college to see if there is a study skills workshop on campus.

Get Organized – Track important deadlines on your calendar, such as last day to drop a class, first day of registration, and tuition payment due date. Keep important numbers and a campus map tucked inside the front cover of your planner to help you find your way to appointments and events. Keep all important paperwork and forms neatly organized in file folders. Keep these additional tips in mind:

1. Register for Classes as soon as you are allowed! Classes will fill up fast and you may not get the classes you need. This could result in you having to take an unnecessary class just to be enrolled full-time or worse!
2. By registering for less than full-time, your financial aid award will be reduced.
3. By registering for less than half-time, you will not be eligible for any financial aid and your student loans will enter repayment 6 months after you are no longer enrolled or enrolled less than half-time.
4. Drop classes using the colleges official form and process and by the deadline required or you could end up with an ‘F’ on your transcript!
5. Pay your tuition or verify your financial aid will cover your tuition by the due date or you could be dropped from all of your classes and have to re-register!