Time Management and Success Techniques

A great aspect of time is its equality. Regardless of race, religion, or age, everyone has the same amount of time in a day, week, month, and year. Wealthy people cannot buy more time and poor people do not receive less time. A minute for a tall person is the same amount of time for a short person. An hour for a woman is the same amount of time for a man. Regardless of how many languages someone speaks, ethnicity, educational background, income, or experience, everyone has 365 days in a year. Granted some people will live longer than others, but everyone has the same amount of time every day as everyone else. Time is also how we keep track of meetings and schedules ensuring that we are where we are supposed to be at the time we are expected to be there (work, home, class, meeting friends and family, et cetera). Time is important to us.

Time Management Strategies for Success

The following are some strategies you can begin using immediately to make the most of your time:

• Prepare to be successful. When planning ahead for studying, think yourself into the right mood. Focus on the positive. “When I get these chapters read tonight, I’ll be ahead in studying for the next test, and I’ll also have plenty of time tomorrow to do X.” Visualize yourself studying well!
• Use your best—and most appropriate—time of day. Different tasks require different mental skills. For some kinds of studying, you may be able to start first thing in the morning as you wake, while others need your most alert moments at another time – whatever those times are for you.
• Break up large projects into small pieces. Whether it is writing a paper for class, studying for a final exam, or reading a long assignment or full book, students often feel daunted at the beginning of a large project. It is easier to get going if you break it up into stages that you schedule at separate times—and then begin with the first section that requires only an hour or two.
• Do the most important studying first. When two or more things require your attention, do the more crucial one first. If something happens and you can’t complete everything, you’ll suffer less if the most crucial work is done.
• If you have trouble getting started, do an easier task first. Like large tasks, complex or difficult ones can be daunting. If you can’t get going, switch to an easier task you can accomplish quickly. That will give you momentum, and often you feel more confident tackling the difficult task after being successful in the first one.
• If you are feeling overwhelmed and stressed because you have too much to do, revisit your time planner. Sometimes it is hard to get started if you keep thinking about other things you need to get done. Review your schedule for the next few days and make sure everything important is scheduled, then relax and concentrate on the task at hand.
• If you are really floundering, talk to someone. Maybe you just don’t understand what you should be doing. Talk with your instructor or another student in the class to get back on track.
• Take a break. We all need breaks to help us concentrate without becoming fatigued and burned out. As a general rule, a short break every hour or so is effective in helping recharge your study energy. Get up and move around to get your blood flowing, clear your thoughts, and work off stress.
• Use unscheduled times to work ahead. You have scheduled that hundred pages of reading for later today, but you have the textbook with you as you’re waiting for the bus. Start reading now, or flip through the chapter to get a sense of what you will be reading later. Either way, you will save time later. You may be amazed how much studying you can get done during down times throughout the day.
• Keep your momentum. Prevent distractions, such as multi-tasking, that will only slow you down. Check for messages, for example, only at scheduled break times.
• Reward yourself. It’s not easy to sit still for hours of studying. When you successfully complete a task, you should feel good and deserve a small reward. A healthy snack, a quick video game session, or social activity can help you feel even better about your successful use of time.
• Just say no. Always tell others nearby when you’re studying, to reduce the chances of being interrupted. Still, interruptions happen, and if you are in a situation where you are frequently interrupted by a family member, spouse, roommate, or friend, it helps to have your “no” prepared in advance: “No, I really have to be ready for this test” or “That’s a great idea, but let’s do it tomorrow—I just can’t today.” You shouldn’t feel bad about saying no—especially if you told that person in advance that you needed to study.
• Have a life. Never schedule your day or week so full of work and study that you have no time at all for yourself, your family and friends, and your larger life.
• Take inventory. Pay attention to where your time goes. What do you spend your time doing? What things could be cut out in order to make space for studies?
• Use a calendar planner and daily to-do list.
• Use technology to your advantage. Software and apps are available to help with organization and productivity. They can save you a lot of time.

Battling Procrastination

Procrastination is a way of thinking that lets one put off doing something that should be done now. This can happen to anyone at any time. It’s like a voice inside your head keeps coming up with these brilliant ideas for things to do right now other than studying: “I really ought to get this room cleaned up before I study” or “I can study anytime, but tonight’s the only chance I have to do X.” That voice is also very good at rationalizing: “I really don’t need to read that chapter now; I’ll have plenty of time tomorrow at lunch.…”

Procrastination is very powerful. Some people battle it daily, others only occasionally. Most students procrastinate often, and about half say they need help avoiding procrastination. Procrastination can threaten one’s ability to do well on an assignment or test.

People procrastinate for different reasons. Some people are too relaxed in their priorities, seldom worry, and easily put off responsibilities. Others worry constantly, and that stress keeps them from focusing on the task at hand. Some procrastinate because they fear failure; others procrastinate because they fear success or are so perfectionistic that they don’t want to let themselves down. Some are dreamers. Many different factors are involved, and there are different styles of procrastinating.

Just as there are different causes, there are different possible solutions for procrastination. Different strategies work for different people. The time management strategies described earlier can help you avoid procrastination. Because this is a psychological issue, some additional psychological strategies can also help:

• Since procrastination is usually a habit, accept that and work on breaking it as you would any other bad habit- one day at a time. Know that every time you overcome feelings of procrastination, the habit becomes weaker and eventually you’ll have a new habit of being able to start studying right away.
• Schedule times for studying using a daily or weekly planner, paper or digital. Carry it with you and look at it often. Just being aware of the time and what you need to do today can help you get organized and stay on track.
• If you keep thinking of something else you might forget to do later (making you feel like you “must” do it now), write yourself a note about it for later and get it out of your mind.
• Counter a negative with a positive. If you’re procrastinating because you’re not looking forward to a certain task, try to think of the positive future results of doing the work.
• Study with a motivated friend. Form a study group with other students who are motivated and won’t procrastinate along with you. You’ll learn good habits from them while getting the work done now.

Study skills

What does it mean to earn an A versus a C or a D in a class? For many students, this letter grade signifies the difference between success and failure. However, grades are dependent on many factors. The difficulty of the material and whether or not a topic is new to you might influence how well you are able to remember the information and recall it on an assessment. The types of assessments that are given in a class (tests, quizzes, papers, ungraded homework) might also play a role in how you are able to demonstrate proficiency in your subject. The section below provides a few tips on how to make the most out of every class and how to increase your chances of getting the grade you want.

Take Notes When You Are Reading

It is helpful to take notes by hand or electronically while you are reading to retain information. This is sometimes called “active reading” and the goal is to stay focused on the material and to be able to refer back to notes made while reading to improve retention and study efficiency. Don’t make the mistake of expecting to remember everything you are reading. Taking notes when reading requires effort and energy. Be willing to do it and you’ll reap the benefits later when studying for a test or writing a paper.

Place Your Assignments on Your Master Calendar and Create Plans for Completing Them Before They Are Due

Place all of your assignments for all of your classes with their due dates in your calendar, planner, smartphone, or whatever you use for organization. Students can block off all classes, studying, commute time, work hours, sleeping, eating, caretaking, and socializing. Using a weekly and monthly schedule, you can schedule when to start those assignments, break an assignment into smaller steps, and have an idea of how long it will take to complete them.

Have Someone Read Your Papers Before You Submit Them

You might be surprised to learn how many students turn in papers with spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors that could have been easily corrected by using a spell checker program or having someone read your paper. Campus writing centers or tutors will read your paper and give feedback, make suggestions, and help shape ideas. Take advantage of these services if they are offered. Another strategy is to read your paper aloud to yourself. You may catch errors when you read aloud that you might not catch when reading your writing. Remember that it is always the student’s responsibility to have papers proofread, not someone else’s. Writing early drafts gives you time to edit.

Schedule a time to study and in a location that is best for you

It’s easy to put off studying if it’s not something we schedule. Block specific times and days for studying. Put the times on your calendar. Stick to the schedule. Some students study best in the morning and some at night. Some excel at a coffee shop, and others at the library. The place and time in which students often study is usually the most convenient for them. Students often find convenient places and times may also be full of distractions and thus are not good choices for them to study. Find several places to study and change up your space if you find that it is no longer a working space for you. It’s worth the effort to study at the time and place that will be most productive for you. For most students, it is best to turn off the cell phone and TV and to keep off the Internet (and social media) unless it directly relates to your work. For some, some background noise helps to concentrate.

Memory techniques

The first thing our brains do is to take in information from our senses (what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell). In many classroom and homework settings, we primarily use hearing for lectures and seeing for reading textbooks. Information we perceive from our senses is stored in what we call the short-term memory.

It is useful to then be able to do multiple things with information in the short-term memory. We want to: 1) decide if that information is important; 2) for the information that is important, be able to save the information in our brain on a longer-term basis—this storage is called the long-term memory; 3) retrieve that information when we need to. Exams often measure how effectively the student can retrieve “important information.”

In some classes and with some textbooks it is easy to determine information important to memorize. In other courses with other textbooks, that process may be more difficult. Your instructor can be a valuable resource to assist with determining the information that needs to be memorized. Once the important information is identified, it is helpful to organize it in a way that will help you best understand.

Moving Information from the Short-term Memory to the Long-term Memory

This is something that takes a lot of time; there is no shortcut to it. Students who skip putting in the time and work often end up cramming at the end.

Once information is memorized, regardless of when the exam is, the last step is to apply the information. Ask yourself: In what real-world scenarios could you apply this information? For mastery, try to teach the information to someone else.

How we save information to our long-term memory has a lot to do with our ability to retrieve it when we need it at a later date. Our mind “saves” information by creating a complex series of links to the data. The stronger the links, the easier it is to recall. You can strengthen these links by using the following strategies. You should note how closely they are tied to good listening and note-taking strategies.

• Make a deliberate decision to remember the specific data. “I need to remember Richard’s name” creates stronger links than just wishing you had a better memory for names.
• Link the information to your everyday life. Ask yourself, “Why is it important that I remember this material?”—and answer it.
• Link the information to other information you already have “stored”, especially the key themes of the course, and you will recall the data more easily. Ask yourself how this is related to other information you have. Look for ways to tie items together. Are they used in similar ways? Do they have similar meanings? Do they sound alike?
• Mentally group similar individual items into “buckets.” By doing this, you are creating links. For example, if you must to memorize a vocabulary list for a Spanish class, group the nouns together with other nouns, verbs with verbs, and so forth. Or your groupings might be sentences using the vocabulary words.
• Use visual imagery. Picture the concept vividly in your mind. Make those images big, bold, and colorful—even silly! Pile concepts on top of each other or around each other; exaggerate their features like a caricature and let your imagination run wild. Humor and crazy imagery can help you recall key concepts.
• Use the information. Studies have generally shown that we retain only 5 percent of what we hear, 10 percent of what we read, 20 percent of what we learn from multimedia, and 30 percent of what is demonstrated to us. However we retain 50 percent of what we discuss, 75 percent of what we practice by doing, and 90 percent of what we teach others or use immediately in a relevant activity. Review your notes, participate in class, and study with others.
• Break information down into manageable “chunks.” Memorizing the ten-digit number “3141592654” seems difficult, but breaking it down into two sets of three digits and one of four digits, like a phone number—(314) 159-2654—now makes it easier to remember.
• Work from general information to the specific. People usually learn best when they get the big picture first, and then look at the details.
• Eliminate distractions. Every time you have to “reboot” your short-term memory, you risk losing data points. Multi-tasking—listening to music or texting while you study—will play havoc with your ability to memorize because you will need to reboot your short-term memory each time you switch mental tasks.
• Repeat, repeat, repeat. Hear the information; read the information; say it (yes, out loud), and say it again. The more you use or repeat the information, the stronger you develop links to it. The more senses you use to process the information, the stronger the memorization. Write information on index cards to make flashcards and use downtime (when waiting for the subway or during a break between classes) to review key information.
• Test your memory often. Try to write down everything you know about a specific subject, from memory. Then go back and check your notes and textbook to see how you did. Practicing retrieval in this way helps ensure long-term learning of facts and concepts.
• Location, location, location. There is often a strong connection between information and the place where you first received that information. Associate information to learning locations for stronger memory links. Picture where you were sitting in the lecture hall as you repeat the facts in your mind.

Using Mnemonics

What do the names of the Great Lakes, the makings of a Big Mac, and the number of days in a month have in common? They are easily remembered by using mnemonic devices. Mnemonics (pronounced neh-MA-nicks) are tricks for memorizing lists and data. They create artificial but strong links to the data, making recall easier. The most commonly used mnemonic devices are acronyms, acrostics, rhymes, and jingles. Check out the chart below for those and more types of mnemonic devices.

Creating personal schedules

When creating a personal schedule, consider the courses you’re taking and your personal time commitments that are non-negotiable, and those that are negotiable. It is important to be realistic about the time required for everything from personal hygiene (bathing, shaving, putting on make-up, doing hair, et cetera) to eating (including meal preparation), to working on courses. As you work on your time management, you will become much more aware of how much time you actually spend on these things.

Be realistic about the amount of time you’ll need to devote to your studies. Remember that for every hour spent in class, you should plan an average of two additional hours studying outside of class. Make sure to schedule these time periods in your planner! These times change from week to week, with one course requiring more time in one week because of a paper due at the end of the week and a different course requiring more the next week because of a major exam. Make sure you block out enough hours in the week to accomplish what you need to do. As you choose your study times, consider what times of day you are at your best and what times you prefer to use for social or other activities.

Don’t try to micro-manage your schedule. Don’t try to estimate exactly how many minutes you’ll need two weeks from today to read a given chapter in a given textbook. Instead, just choose the blocks of time you will use for your studies. Don’t yet write in the exact study activity—just reserve the block. Next, look at the major deadlines for projects and exams that you wrote earlier. Estimate how much time you may need for each and work backward on the schedule from the due date.

As you put together your schedule, here are some tips to keep in mind:

• Be realistic about time when you make your schedule.
• Don’t overdo it. Few people can study four or five hours nonstop, and scheduling extended time periods like that may just set you up for failure.
• Schedule social events that occur at set times, but just leave holes in the schedule for other activities. Enjoy those open times and recharge your energy level!
• Try to schedule some time for exercise at least three days a week.
• If a study activity is taking longer than you had scheduled, look ahead and adjust your weekly planner to prevent the stress of feeling behind.
• If you’re not paying close attention to everything in your planner, use a colored highlighter to mark the times blocked out for really important things.
• When following your schedule, pay attention to starting and stopping times. If you planned to start your test review at four o’clock after an hour of reading for a different class, don’t let the reading run long and take time away from studying for the test.