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Opinion

Time Management is Not Overrated

Students are told all throughout their school careers to manage their time wisely. Time management, we are told, will help us to become more organized and thus more effective students. It will also cause us to have more free time and reduce stress.

Most students acknowledge this information, but do not act upon it. They maintain that this is a good idea in theory, but simply not attainable in real life, given just how much work and other activities they have.

According to an article in the International Journal of Social Psychiatry, college students, by nature, are more apt to be stressed. Additionally, stress can interfere with health and academic execution.

However, time management can truly change a student’s life. From firsthand experience, I have found that using time management efficiently really can alter some parts of life.

I used to be a tremendous procrastinator. If I had two weeks to do a paper, I would maybe think about it a little two days before it was due, but would not actually write it until the night before.

Sometimes, I would even wake up a little extra early to finish it the morning it was due.

This process did not fail me. Despite when I wrote the paper, I still got good grades on them; the assignment was still completed and handed in on time.

Even when psychologists would come in to a class as part of a speaker series to explain the benefits of time management, I did not change my ways.

Many students maintain that they do not have motivation to complete an assignment too far in advance of when it is due. If they do not have motivation, they argue, they cannot complete the assignment, and if they by some chance can, it is not at the level it could be.

While this may or may not be true, time management can still help with becoming a better student all-around.

Last semester, I began an experiment. I would try to complete “easy homework” (typically an assignment that does not take more than a half hour to finish) the day it was assigned. Doing this then freed up time the night before it was due for longer assignments that would require more time.

Bigger assignments, like a paper, would have a more intricate process.

No one wants to sit down to write a five or seven page paper, especially with sources, in one sitting. It’s not an attractive task. So, I would give myself about a week to do these assignments.

Each day would have a quota: day one, for example, could be thinking of an idea and maybe what the introduction would say. Day two could be devoted to conducting research. Day three would be outlining and so on, until finally the paper was written.

This breakdown of a large assignment into smaller ones made it not as daunting to finish. The best part was that each day’s “task” could be crossed off the to-do list, boosting the feeling of productivity.

This process definitely improved my grades. With papers, I now had time to really sit down and revise them before it was due, catching little errors that would normally get me a few points off. Extra time also enabled me to further analyze the topic.

From an article in the Journal of Advanced Academics, “To be successful in homework completion, learners need to be self-regulated by setting homework goals, selecting appropriate learning strategies, maintaining motivation, monitoring progress, and evaluating homework outcomes.” My little experiment is a prime example of this theory. Setting attainable goals makes a big project seem less overwhelming.

According to this same article, students who maintain motivation do better. While this is not an easy task, managing time in a diligent way helps. Setting small goals and rewards for achieving these goals can help with keeping motivated with schoolwork.

For example, if a student wants to go out on the weekend, but has a paper to do, he or she might write a detailed outline and find sources first, go out, and then finish the paper by the end of the weekend. This way, the assignment gets done because he or she is constantly motivated.

Time management is about give and take. To learn more about time management, register for the Tutoring Center’s workshops on October 18 and 26. More information can be found on the University’s website.