by Cicely Richard

Created on: August 04, 2009   Last Updated: August 06, 2009

Anyone who's attended college has faced the dilemma of having more work than hours of the day. It seems like once you finish one assignment another one follows. Some college students have at least 50 pages to read per week and a paper due every other week, on average. Students spend hours poring over their assignments, at times staying up until three, four or later in the morning and becoming stressed out as the semester progresses. Most of the time, students suffer from poor time management skill. College students who finish assignments, get adequate sleep, and succeed in school learn the importance of managing their time.

The first time management skill for college student is creating a personal schedule. Some students make 8-day or 2-week study plans for each class to make sure all of their work gets completed and they don't get overwhelmed. They can use the syllabus distributed on the first day of class or provided on Blackboard, D2L, or other similar programs as a guide for creating their schedules. Unless professors alter their original schedule, students can basically plan their whole semester using the syllabus. Once students create a study plan based on their syllabus, they need to break big assignments into smaller pieces.

Major assignments are easier to tackle in sections. For example, if students have to read a chapter in a book, they can complete one or two headings a day or read a certain amount of pages per day. If students have to write research papers, they can schedule different parts of the projects. They can write a tentative outline one day. Find resources another day and visit the library. Complete their rough draft by a certain time and bring it to the professor's office hours or have someone else read it and provide revising suggestions. Breaking down material also works for upcoming exams.

Although creating a schedule and simplifying large assignments are important time management skills for college students, these tools will not work if they are not enacted. To manage time, students need to learn to say no when distractions occur. College students get sidetracked by friends, organizations, extracurricular activities, and movies and television. Just because they mix one event, party, and movie, another one is on the horizon. If they have major research projects or reading assignments, college students shouldn't think it's the end of the world to miss something. The primary reason they are in college is learning, not partying.

Students need to get enough sleep, even if they have to put a bedtime on their schedule. When I was in college, I made it a point to cease studying and homework by 8:00 p.m. and begin settling down for the evening, even if I didn't go to bed until later. This method prompted me to stick to my schedule and be relaxed for the next day. Different students use different methods. The important thing is getting enough sleep.

The best time management skills for college students include writing down a schedule, making large assignments into mini-assignments, saying no to distractions, and getting enough sleep. Doing all of these things helps students complete their work on time and remain relaxed and alert. Becoming overwhelmed is one of the primary things that take joy out of the college experience, but all students can manage their time properly.

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