How to Free Up Time in College
College is that time of your life when you’re expected to have independence, autonomy and responsibility. And with these, you’re also expected to have more control over your time. There may be times when you feel burned out with having to maintain an academic, social and business life all at the same time. You might be aiming for good grades, working part time to augment your dwindling college fund, making friends, and starting up a business. How do you free up time for all this? Here are a couple suggestions.
Wake up early. This is a mostly subjective issue, because some of us are morning people while some of us are night owls. But no matter what your preference is, you cannot change the fact that a workday (or school day) usually starts in the morning, and you do have to get to class on time. Waking up early gives you extra time to freshen up and eat breakfast. Breakfast will give you the energy to accomplish your goals for the day.
If you wake up early enough, you’ll also avoid most of the distractions that seem to regularly come up in college since students are notorious for sleeping in. The early hours are great times to focus and get a lot of work done.
Take care of the small stuff. Take care of the little tasks right away before they grow and accumulate. If something can be done in two to five minutes, then it’s probably worth doing right away. Just finished a mug of coffee? Wash it right away before your kitchen sink turns into a tower of plates and mugs with radioactive goo. Do you need to call or email a professor? Do it now while it’s early. When you’ve ticked off the small items on your to do list, you’ll feel amazed at how much time you’ve saved.
Do one task at a time, but group tasks by location or logistics. Human brains are not like dual-core processors that your new laptop or desktop computer has. While our brains can essentially multitask, your conscious mind can probably focus on only one thing. Therefore, it’s a good idea to focus on finishing one task at a time, especially if it’s something important. If you’re finishing a paper or report, avoid turning on your instant messaging application at the same time. When you multitask, you tend to linger on each of the individual things you do, and therefore you waste time having to refocus your mind on doing each and everyone of these.
However, you should learn to group these tasks by location or time. For instance, if you’re bringing your clothes to the cleaners or laundrymat, then you can also do your grocery shopping along the way. You save time, energy and even transportation money by doing only one trip instead of more.
Cut back on unnecessary commitments. There are always parties to attend, club or frat meetings to go to, study groups to study with, and other activities that come your way, whether academic or non-academic. Learn to say “no” to commitments that you think would take up too much of your time from the more important things. It doesn’t mean that some events or commitments are not important. It’s just that you have other, more pressing things that you have to prioritize. Be realistic. Saying “no” does not necessarily mean being rude. Decline respectfully and be reasonable and realistic in doing so.
Avoid or limit distractions. I’ve talked about distractions already but it’s worth elaborating on the subject. Distractions keeps your focus away from doing something and it leads to more time spent on that task. It’s a good idea to avoid or limit these whenever you’re trying to study, work or do other important things. For instance, when you’re in shared living arrangements, establish a personal space because roommates might constantly distract or disturb you. How about finishing your review or your paper first, and then having fun with your extra time after that?
Time management is a highly personal matter. What works for one person might not work for another person. But there’s no harm in trying some tips and suggestions and sticking to them if they work for you. While you will only spend a few years in college, these habits will be important when you work in the corporate world or run your own business full time. So manage your time wisely and free up extra time to improve your college based business.
This is a guest post from twitQA, a Twitter answer site.
Share your thoughts!!!