Are you stressed over everything you have piled on your plate? Being a student means you have a lot to balance between school, work, and your personal life. It can be pretty overwhelming when there is so much to keep track of, which is why we have developed five tips to help better your time management. 

Create a planner and schedule

One of the best ways to keep track of everything in your life is by using a planner or calendar to schedule your tasks. You can use a physical or digital version, depending on what you prefer. Planners and calendars are useful because they help you keep an eye on deadlines. How many times have you told yourself you would remember to do something and end up forgetting to do it? Especially with the amount of homework that professors assign, writing everything down will ensure that nothing is forgotten. Crossing off your tasks can also hopefully give you some relief as you progressively complete each one. 

Organize and prioritize tasks

Although planners and calendars also help with organization, it is important to determine how you want to organize and prioritize your tasks. Do you prefer to work on big, difficult projects first or start off small and gradually go bigger? Perhaps you also want to organize by deadlines. Decide what you believe is most important and tackle that first. Once you have determined what is most important, you can schedule times to work on them. For instance, if you have decided to prioritize a big project due in a week, maybe you want to schedule short time slots within the next few days to complete it. 

Avoid multitasking 

We may think we can multitask but the truth is, it is impossible to truly multitask (dividing your attention over multiple tasks at once). Why? Because when we attempt to multitask, we can only direct our attention to one thing at a time. For example, let us say we are trying to watch a show on TV and do homework at the same time. You cannot look at your homework and at the TV simultaneously. Therefore, you either direct your attention to the show or towards your homework. So technically, we are switching tasks rather than ‘multitasking’. You switch from doing homework to watching TV and go back and forth.

The reason why you want to avoid multitasking is that it will take longer to complete your tasks. When you start to do many things at once, you are creating distractions for each one. Homework is a distraction from your show and your show is a distraction from homework. If you are trying to get a bunch done, what you must do is distance yourself from any potential distractions- this can include your phone too. Phones serve as perfect distractions. It can be hard to focus on homework when a phone notification goes off because then you want to focus on the notification rather than your assignment.

Learn when to say no

Do you have a difficult time saying no to people? Saying no can be used in many different contexts. If friends are asking you to go out and you have homework to finish, you can say no. If your job is asking if you can pick up a shift, you can say no. If you always say yes, it prevents you from finishing anything. Do not constantly add to a plate that is already full. You will make yourself more overwhelmed and delay the current work that needs to be done.

Do not forget to take breaks

It is important to take breaks too. Do not keep yourself so busy that you eventually get burnout. Taking breaks helps you unwind and recharge. However, do not take too many breaks to the point where you start to procrastinate. It is good to find a healthy balance of work and relaxation. Struggling with burnout right now? Check out our blog to learn how to through it. 

Balancing school, work and our personal lives can be overwhelming. Trying these five tips of creating a planner and schedule, organizing and prioritizing tasks, avoiding multitasking, learning when to say no and not forgetting to take breaks should hopefully help you improve time management.