How to Manage Your Time in College or Graduate School

The flexibility of college and graduate school life can be a wolf in sheep's clothing. Use these techniques to manage your time well.

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Palm Handheld Organizers
• Alarm Clocks
• Wall Calendars
• Personal Organizers
• Schedule Management Software

1. Plan your class schedule, as much as possible, so that your classes are consecutive. This avoids potentially inefficient downtime in between classes.

2. Get a daily planner and plot out each day's classes and errands the night before. Schedule your errands to avoid backtracking.

3. Use downtime to do schoolwork. Finish that chapter on Aristotle while you're waiting outside your professor's office.

4. Keep a textbook or other schoolwork with you throughout the day. You never know when you might have time to kill in line at the post office or in the doctor's waiting room.

5. Avoid distractions that get in the way of your schoolwork - use fun activities as rewards when you've finished your day's work.

6. Make sure you schedule in a healthy amount of fun time. Efficiency is useless if it drives you insane!

Tips & Warnings

• If you commute to campus via public transit, do schoolwork on the way.
• Get a computer if you can. It will save you a lot of time.
• Wear a watch.

on 3/13/2006 Start with whatever you found most difficult. Get help if you struggle. If you still can't do it, leave it and accept that you can't do everything. Go on to the next hardest thing. This way your revision gets easier as you approach the exam and you are not putting off revising because of being unwilling to tackle one thing that you find impossible.

on 11/22/2005 Most campuses have wireless Internet or Intranet connection. Buy one that is small so you can carry it everywhere. When you're in line or waiting between classes you can do your research or homework or just check out the stock prices. I love my Sony, it is more expensive but it is light and the screen is the best.

on 6/11/2007 Try to review your school material every chance you get. Tell your co-workers about the new concept learned in class today. Ask friends what they think about the dilemma in the Middle east so that you have ideas for what to write in the essay that's due in a week. Try to incorporate mathematical theories and biological and physics concepts into everyday experience.

on 11/22/2005 Do what you consider to be important. Hunt elephants instead of ants. Do what will retribute you best, you can forget the unimportant stuff. Sincerely, time is one of the best resources we have. Many people do not realize this fact.

on 11/22/2005 Nothing used to frustrate me more than having 3 lists of to-dos scribbled on scrap paper and not knowing how much they overlapped [how much I *really* had to do]. I also used to have all kinds of dreams and goals floating around in my head, taking up valuable brain space. Now I have all my goals, from the everyday to the far-out "someday" dreams, in a file on my computer, organized by category [spiritual, academic, financial, health, etc.]. I've also printed it out and included it in my dayplanner so when I have free time and wonder what to do with it, I can see what I can do about my goals and dreams.