Time is more precious than money because, unlike money, it is impossible to replenish this resource.
However, if you approach the issue correctly, you can triple the length of each day and expand your subjective time. We are going to explain how to manage your time better if you are a busy college student.
Time is a constant. But we treat it like a variable. People often hear phrases from students like “Ugh! This day is endless,” “The month flew by,” and, of course, “I don’t have time to deal with my research paper.”
Students say the last phrase often because they do not pay due attention to the preparatory process. One of its stages is the selection of a topic for a research paper.
Students just don’t know what to write about. Fortunately, there are research topics for college students that can help. Just choose from the list the topic that interests you the most.
Five time management tips for college students
Like any other variable, your relationship with time can greatly affect how far you go. I have tried a variety of time management strategies.
We have developed a system that we can call the five principles of time management. If you can adapt and master them, you will be more successful in your studies, be more productive, add more fun, and build a life you enjoy.
Let’s look at these five principles.
Add more “days” to your day
Today, we can send an email anywhere in the world in an instant. We can conduct a teleconference with tens or hundreds of people around the clock. Instead of going to the library, we can search for anything in a search engine and get answers in seconds.
Today, we can do more in five minutes, an hour, or a day than people did in a whole week or a month just a century ago.
Our skill to compress time is our ability to manipulate it to our advantage. How does it contribute to your study goals? You see them as clearly as never before. And, of course, you are approaching the goal more rapidly.
You can put this approach into practice today. It is efficient.
Every once in a while, you will have one of those days when everything goes on as usual. You can get a lot of work done and be more productive in several hours than in one of the usual full days.
Or maybe you had a day where you did more than in a whole month. What if you repeat this impulse every day?
Here’s how to do it. Instead of considering your day as a single block of time, divide your waking hours into three equal parts – mini-days. For example, this means that the “first day” lasts from 6 am to noon.
“Second day” is from noon to 6:00 pm, and “third day” is from 6:00 pm to midnight. You live seven days a week, but with this approach, you live 21 days.
By creating shorter days, your brain begins to appreciate every minute more. You don’t waste time because your sense of urgency is much stronger.
You focus even more on what you need to do “today.” With this strategy, you pack study, relationships, productivity, fitness, and fun into shorter, more intense chunks of time. You move the finish line so that as many of your tasks as possible turn into sprints.
Don’t forget that there must still be balance in your life. You still have to find time for everything. At first, this may seem intimidating to you.
But, having tried, you will replace old bad habits with new, effective ones. You will move faster and have better control over your time.
Treat time with a stronger sense of urgency
Here’s an example. You are a student assigned a major project at the beginning of the term with a deadline towards the end of the term.
Do you deal with it right away? Most put the project on “cruise control.” They discreetly place it on the top shelf of their lives, knowing they will deal with it later exactly until the deadline sneaks up imperceptibly.
At some point, you are seized by panic, fear, horror, and thoughts like “I hate college” and “Perhaps I will become a bartender.”
But if you were to take on the project armed with a sense of urgency, that monster, the beast looming over you, would be almost imperceptible.
If you apply this approach to everything you do during the day, week, or year, you will get more done and experience the kind of sense of accomplishment that others only dream of.
Learn to control time, not obey it
If you manage your time with a sense of urgency, then you become a master, not a servant.
The faster you move, the more you control it. You have a sense of urgency, and you decide what is important to you more. This allows you to spend more time on what is really useful.
The desire to control your time is a mindset that should be turned on as soon as the brain wakes up in the morning.
Measure your performance frequently
Productivity is improved where it can be measured.
eThe ability to measure plays an extremely important role. Every leader in motivation and organization, like Zig Ziglar, incorporates this idea into their foundational strategies for a simple reason. Measuring performance is efficient.
As you reduce the time frame and increase the urgency, you also need to increase the frequency of measuring your performance.
If you do not take the time to measure, it will be more difficult for you to adjust these limits. And this leads to inefficiency and loss of time.
Focus on the future
Many are stuck in the past. This kills their productivity in the present and makes it impossible to plan for the future.
The past is gone forever, but until you let it go, it robs you of your ability to dream and imagine.
You need to devote more time to thinking about the future because that is where you are going.
Also, keep in touch with the present because that’s how you build a better future.