Effective Time Management

A college student’s life mainly consists of classes, assignments, and projects which they try

to juggle with everyday and most of the time, they fail to carry out all their responsibilities

efficiently due to poor time management. As a student, poor management of time will

prevent us from reaching our full potential. Classes and assignments can be long, tiring and

frustrating due to poor planning and time is wasted doing things that should be done in a few

moments or not at all. All of us have the same amount of time; the challenge is using this

resource effectively. What follows are some suggestions on using your time more effectively

so that you can get things done on time without feeling rushed and frustrated.

The best place to start managing time better is with yourself! Resolve to manage your time

and not let time manage you. It’s highly likely that you may be the cause of some of your

time problems as time management problems often stem from poor work habits; therefore,

you need to analyze how you spend your time. It's a good idea to start by writing down a list

of your activities and how much time you spend on them. After a few days days, look at

these activities and ask yourself what major activities or events caused you to use your time

ineffectively. This way you can pinpoint your own time wasters and also decide on which

tasks must be performed first as compared to other tasks which are secondary.

You should also direct your time by using goals because if you specify your destination

before you begin, you will make the best use of your time. Determine what you want to

accomplish and set goals to effectively achieve it. Without goals you can become sidetracked

easily and waste time. To make these goals operational, a daily "to-do" list should be used.

Begin each day with a plan of tasks and the priority of each task. In budgeting your time,

allocate part of each day to tasks that will lead to accomplishment of your goals by blocking

out part of your day or week for major projects and assignments to ensure that you have time

to do the important things.

Remember the 19th-century Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto's 80/20 rule. This rules states

that 80 percent of all that happens at work is really the result of 20 percent effort. With your

goals, you can be 80 percent effective by achieving 20 percent of your goals. If you have a

list of 10 items, you generally can expect to be 80 percent effective by successfully

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