As college students and working professionals, we need to utilize our time as efficiently as
possible which can be very difficult when we are stressed, have a lot of work piled up, and have
very little time to do it. In this blog, I will share some helpful tips to improve your time
management skills that have helped me over the years.
1. Prioritize Your Work
This might seem obvious to some but prioritizing your work at a macro and micro level is
super important. At a macro level, we need to make sure all our attention is on our work
which means we need to stop our minds from wandering and distracting us. This can be
difficult but it is important to set boundaries for ourselves which can mean keeping your
phone aside, uninstalling social media apps, and telling the people around us to give us
some time alone so we can focus.
On a micro level, this means figuring out which work is more important and needs
immediate attention versus what can be done at a later time. Most of the time we look at
deadlines, the level of difficulty, and how time-consuming a task is when deciding what
to prioritize.
2. Use a Planner / Calendar to Stay Organized
The more work we have the harder it can be to remember everything we have to do. As
college students, it can be hard for us to remember all the details related to our work like
the deadlines, the pages we need to read, or the questions we need to answer. This is why
having a planner and a calendar can be extremely useful. I always write down all my
tasks and all details related to that task in my planner. For important deadlines or
meetings, I make note of them on my calendar.
I even sometimes set alarms for reminders so I don’t forget something important. Using
some sort of tool to help us with time management is critical if we want to be on top of
our things. Many students tend to use apps such as Notion.
3. Time Blocking
Time blocking is an important technique that if used effectively, can be a game-changer.
Allotting time to tasks can help us plan our day and be realistic about what we want to
achieve in a specific time frame.
We tend to think we can get everything done in one day and when that doesn’t happen it
leaves us disappointed. We end up getting stuck on a specific task and before we know it
the day is over and we only got nothing of value done. This is why if we block time for
different tasks we get a chance to start working on everything and prevents us from
getting fixated on one thing. Be sure to block a sufficient amount of time, based on the
task, and be sure to allot breaks in between as well.
These are just a few of the many things we can do to help us manage our time and get through those
rough days when we don't know where to start. These are habits that take time to develop but
once we use them on a daily basis we can see a major difference in our productivity levels and
the quality of work we produce.