Time Management for Students: Focus on Priorities

The time management for students activity time management tool increases focus on important tasks. Using this time management activity reduces stress and improves student time management.

Picture the moment....it's the night before the big exam or a major deadline for an assessment. There is so much to do!

Your heart is pumping and you can't think straight...you are stressing out!

"If only I had started earlier!"

We’ve all experienced these moments of crisis in our academic or personal lives, where there just does not seem to be enough hours in the day to do those things that are important to us.

We feel out of control and stressed-out!

The student time management matrix helps you to take control!

The student time management matrix

The time management student matrix helps you to take control of time, feel more confident, become more productive, and experience less stress.

By asking what is important in your life and then making time do it, you greatly increase your effectiveness and reduce your stress.

The problem is that sometimes the urgent tasks get in the way or we confuse urgent with important.

Is the task important?

Important tasks for the student are those that are essential for achieving success in your student life.

For many, this may be spending time studying and working towards a career, maintaining and enhancing your health, or sharing time with family and friends.

Activities that are important are those that contribute to your vision and goals. These exist in Quadrants 1 and 2 of the time management student matrix.

Unimportant tasks are such things as surfing the Internet, watching TV, or taking unimportant phone calls.

Focusing on these tasks at the expense of more important tasks leads to feelings of lack of purpose as you are not moving towards your goals. These tasks exist in Quadrants 3 and 4.

Is the task urgent or not?

Asking this question is probably a good indicator of the amount of stress that you feel as a student.

Urgent tasks are those 'must do' tasks that require immediate attention!

They may be a crunching assessment deadline or the study that you must do for tomorrow's exam. These include tasks in Quadrants 1 and 3 of the time management student matrix.

Less urgent tasks are those immediate and usually less stressful ones and may include watching TV, some phone calls and emails, or setting goals and planning your time.

These include tasks in Quadrants 2 and 4.

Making the time management for students matrix work for you

From a time management perspective, your effectiveness increases and your stress decreases as you spend more time in Quadrant 2.

Tasks in Quadrant 2 are important but not urgent.

For a student they may involve time on readings before lectures, preparation of tutorials, studying this week's course content, or planning your week schedule.

By spending your time on Quadrant 2 activities you devote time to important activities before they become urgent.

The problem is that often with so many different responsibilities to juggle, students can become dominated by the tyranny of the urgent.

This is where urgent things crowd out the important things.

For example, some students may procrastinate and put off tasks. It is often easier to watch TV (a Quadrant 4 activity) than prepare early for an assignment. I talk more about beating procrastination with these college time management tips.

Crowding out your important activities can result in more stress and is a less effective use of your time.

Moving from Quadrant 2 to Quadrant 1 increases student stress

Often, it is these unimportant activities that are urgent or that we enjoy that crowd out planning, setting goals, and preparing for exams and assignments.

However, when Quadrants 3 and 4 activities crowd out Quadrant 2 activities this is a recipe for stress and burnout.

Why?

Well, those important but not urgent tasks do not go away - this is because they are important!

So the longer that you leave your important tasks the more chance they will become urgent.

Urgent important tasks are those that can be a significant cause of stress.

For example, you can put off studying or preparing for an exam but eventually the stress of a nearing deadline means you have to cram the night before.

This equals STRESS.

Another example is if you put off doing exercise and looking after your health this may lead to the doctor ordering you to exercise and eat well.

Being in Quadrant 1 of the time management for students matrix is stressful!

What activities do you do that fall into Quadrant 4?

These are activities that are not important to your long-term goals and are not urgent.

These type of activities - watching TV, surfing the Net...are generally things that we enjoy, or provide us with a sense of disengagement from the work at hand.

All of us get distracted.

The phone call or a the tasks that lands on our desk and grabs our attention.

These are urgent - it is very difficult to avoid a ringing phone, regardless of how important the activity you are doing.

Can you think of any urgent but unimportant activities that exist in your Quadrant 3?

By reducing activities in this area, or batching these distractions and interruptions, time management for students improves.

I talk more about batching with respect to emails at email etiquette.

How can you get more time in Quadrant 2 of the time management for students matrix?

As a student you want to spend time in Quadrant 2. You want to be focused on your most important tasks with minimal stress.

How can you spend more time in Quadrant 2 of the time management for students matrix?

Like most students you are juggling many demands so cutting down on those urgent and things is probably not an option.

But you can't continue to "spin your wheels and go nowhere."

You can spend more time in Quadrant 2 by:

• Clarify what is important. Use student goal setting to focus on your important goals.

  In student goal setting you can download a goal setting plan that builds upon a foundation of the values and beliefs that are important to you.

• Know what your timewasters are.. Once you identify them (using a time management log makes it objective) then you set goals to overcome procrastination, manage interruptions, and schedule your time.

  I talk about the importance of scheduling with this time management college activity.

• Use a student planner. Develop a semester and weekly plan that focuses on activities that are important to you.

  Download free student planners that enable you to plan your work and then work your plan.

• Maintain good study techniques. Now that you have planned the time to study and put it into your schedule it is important to maintain good study habits that maximize the use of your time at the desk.

  I talk more about developing good study techniques that are effective time management for students.