5 Time Management Hacks for Busy College Students
A lot of time management advice we get from productivity gurus were not meant for students for example delegation now as somebody who runs their own business i delegate things like checking my email or editing this video for example maybe you have a lawn that you don’t want to mow what are students able to delegate are you going to have your little brother go to class for you another example is hell yes or no hell yeah or no just like learning to be okay with saying no to stuff if i get an email from someone saying hey do you want to do this thing and i’m thinking maybe it sounds kind of alright then my default position is going to be no everything is an obligatory hell yes for a student when can we ever say no i don’t want to take this exam or met i don’t feel like studying so instead here’s a time management framework that’s actually built for students and it’s part of our ongoing series study skills it’s as easy as one two three four five let me explain for this method you only need to master one skill that will make time management easier over the long run and that is understanding how long it really takes for you to do something.
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Our brains are really bad at estimating this so pay attention to how long it takes you especially for things that you do often for example going to the gym actually includes getting ready driving in the gym and washing up after or eating lunch actually includes preparing the food or waiting in line to pay for it the best thing to do is to literally time yourself i used to always overestimate how long it would take me
to do reading assignments or to do 20 flash cards but after timing myself i realized that i can get a lot of work done in all the random bits of time throughout the day like in between classes or on the bus ride home that would have otherwise been wasted next you’ll only need two items to carry out this entire time management system a calendar and a piece of paper or you can use your smartphone.
if you have one but don’t worry about all these fancy to-do list apps and routine trackers and stuff like that if you can master this analog method then you can later customize it and make it as sophisticated as you need it to be now there are three steps to this time management system this is based on cal newport’s book so shout out to him the three steps are number one whenever a new task or assignment comes up throughout the day you want to quickly jot it down on your piece of paper for me the hardest part about this entire system is just remembering to write things down on the spot but the more you do it the easier it gets step two happens the next morning you wanna plan your day based on what needs to be done and step three is to move all other tasks to future dates in the calendar.
So i’m going to show you an example of what the three steps look like in action but i want to emphasize four rules that really made this system work for me especially when i was studying for my dual degrees first rule is it has to be flexible we’re not trying to be elon musk and plan every minute of our day in order to run four companies at the same time we’re students we need to be ready on a moment’s notice when our friends hit us up for an impromptu ramen run the second rule is it needs to be easy to restart after periods of neglect i love this idea it’s also from cal newport we’re human we’re not perfect we’re going to miss days and that’s okay but once you’ve seen how organization can change your life you’re gonna have a hard time going long periods of time without it number three is it has to reduce stress and we do this by offloading all the things we need to remember onto our paper having obligations and deadlines kind of floating around your head is exhausting plus it makes it impossible to relax when you want to as author david allen says your mind is for having ideas not holding them so this is why we want to immediately record any tasks or deadlines that we get and offload them from our brain and four it has to prioritize our tasks.
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It’s impossible to do everything we can’t manage to go to every party or join every club sometimes it’s not even possible to do every single assignment for every class so we have to pick and choose what’s important to us so that’s why this method consolidates all our options and clearly displays in front of us so that we can make informed decisions when it matters with these rules in mind let’s look at a typical thursday for young college matty matty wakes up at 8 30 am for class at nine he starts by pulling out his list from yesterday containing all the tasks that he had recorded throughout the day now he looks at his calendar to see what’s already been scheduled he has class at nine and eleven am there are dinner plans with his friends at seven p.m then a party for the newly matched rookies at 9pm he wants to go to the gym before dinner so he plans to have all of his schoolwork done by 5 pm now he looks at all the tasks that need to be done biology assignment due today calculus problem set due tomorrow script a youtube video return breath of the wild to kev or keep it and buy the dlc buy his big bro mike a new ipad for his birthday find a summer internship and make low five beats for a study with me video now maddie just needs to fit the most important tasks into the open slots luckily maddie has developed the skill of knowing exactly how much time it takes for him to do certain tasks so this step is a breeze he can finish the biology assignment and submit it in between class he can also do some random chores in this hour like returning the video game or slaying ganon for the 50th time this week
It would likely take him about two hours each to calculus and script the youtube video so he schedules them both after lunch that takes him up to 5 p.m and probably all the time he has for today the other things on the list can get pushed to future dates because they aren’t as urgent and that’s it matty spent less than five minutes recording his task and planning his day all while dropping off the kids at school but of course his schedule doesn’t always go according to plan but it’s flexible enough that nothing will get missed he returns breath of the wild to kev but they end up playing a little too long and go for an impromptu late lunch then they find out that techno is working on the calculus problem set so matty rearranges his schedule he only has a little time before the calculus study group so he’ll get as much of the youtube script done as possible and finish the rest tomorrow imagine what life would have been like if he didn’t have such a flexible time management system he’d probably forget all the menial tasks and allow them to build up plus he’d be more stressed when last minute study sessions arise but he kept
his cool throughout the day he was able to record new tasks onto his list so that he can plan again the next morning and the whole process starts over if this was helpful let us know by liking the video and here i have another simple tutorial video to help make academy life a little less chaotic check it out and i’ll see you there.