Personal time management can be a
challenge when going to school. Going to class, getting all your
homework done, and doing all those extracurricular activities
will eat up a lot of your time. If you manage your time poorly,
you'll have no time to yourself, and your grades or work
performance may suffer.
The earlier you start building a routine the better. If you are
in high school, college, or beyond managing your time will be an
essential key to your success. Instead of wasting time thinking
about what you're going to do in a day, you already know what
you want to accomplish and when. It helps you create a habit of
accomplishing things and makes you more efficient and effective
when performing a task.
Use these tips and techniques
to create a routine, stick to it, and maximize your
productivity.
Create your schedule
Write down a routine that you
can stick to. Create it on a calendar, in a planner, or
somewhere where you're going to reference it often. First,
schedule the events you have to do at certain times, like
classes, work, meals, and sleep (yes, sleep is important). Next,
make time slots for more important tasks such as homework,
studying, and physical fitness. Do this all the way down to
creating down time for things like watching TV or playing video
games.
The ultimate goal is to follow
this personal time management routine every day without thinking
about it. But at first, it will help to write it down.
Stick to the task at hand
The goal of building a routine
is to efficiently complete a task in the least amount of time
possible. Multi-tasking will slow you down. It may appear
quicker to do your math homework while talking with a parent on
the phone, but in reality, it wastes time. You won't be much fun
to talk with, you're more prone to making a mistake on your
homework, and ultimately, you will do two things bad instead of
one thing good.
If your routine or planner says
you should be gardening, ignore as many things as possible. Let
the phone ring. Grab the mail when you're done. Watch TV after
the weeds are pulled. Tell friends you can hang out in an hour
or so. Multi-tasking is a time waster, not a wise business time
management technique.
Be flexible
It would be great if you could
stick to a routine every day without disruption. Unfortunately,
it won't always work out. Maybe your friends want to do a study
group when you'd normally be working out. You don't have to tell
them that it's exercise time. Go study with your friends and
workout when you planned to do homework. You can be flexible and
still accomplish what you need to.
You may even have to completely
eliminate a task. If your boss asks you to stay late at work,
evaluate if there is something more important you need to do. If
there isn't, go ahead and eliminate reading or TV time. The
extra hours at work help you earn some extra money. Or maybe
you're too exhausted to clean the bathroom. Take a nap if that
will help you feel better. Be flexible but still accomplish the
tasks at hand.
Some tips and techniques for
starting a daily routine
• Go to bed and get up at the
same time every day
• Eat meals, snacks, and bathe
at certain times
• Exercise first thing in the
morning
• Make sure you do something
fun at least once a week
• Make sure you get at least 8
hours of sleep a night
• Get things like clothes,
books ready the night before
• Do homework right after
class. That way, the information is still fresh in your mind.
• Evaluate your daily routine
each night. Was there something you wanted to do but didn't get
around to it?
Change your routine as
necessary. Give yourself some slack each day and do something on
a whim. Personal time management routines help you accomplish
tasks more efficiently, and will help you accomplish more each
day.
