Tips for Time Management in College
If youāre about to head into another semester of collegeāor even your firstā you need the right tools and mindset to hit the ground running for academic success.
Success in college will depend on your intellect and hard work, yes, but time management might be the most crucial piece to high academic achievement. Balancing five or six classes, finding the time to study, and getting enough sleep can be difficultābut with these time management tips from the CLEP study guide experts at SpeedyPrep, youāll be prepared to succeed in your courses and finish your work with time to spare!
Go to class.
This is, for some reason, the most difficult part of college for some students. If you skip out on class to sleep in or hang out with your friends, itās going to take you much longer to learn course materials than it would if you made it to the lecturesāand if you skip a class more than once, youāll fall behind and do damage to your attendance grade and overall grade.
Even if youāre running on a half-hour of sleep and didnāt complete the assignment thatās due, go to class. You canāt learn and your professors canāt give you a merciful due date extension if you donāt show up.
Block your classes.
When it comes to your day-to-day class schedule, some people spread classes throughout the day, giving themselves breaks between each class. But what do these ābreaksā really accomplish? If you give yourself short breaks between classes, it will be difficult to study and easy to hop on Twitter or grab a bagel at the coffee shop.
Blocking your classes together in the morning ensures that your mind will be fresh and active during class time, and itāll allow you to devote larger blocks of time to studying in the afternoon or the evening. Plus, when you want to ditch studying for a day to have a little fun, youāll be off in the late morning or the early afternoon with the whole day ahead of you.
Know your body.
Do you always seem like you need a nap around 2:30? Or do you start fading fast around 8? When it comes to studying and time management, itās important to know how your body works so you can work and study at optimal times. Most people are either owls or roostersāthey either thrive during the wee hours of the night or get work done first thing in the morning. Some people are neither owls nor roosters, and those people should probably should keep their college coursework on a 9-5 schedule.
Whatever the case, find the times that your body is most energized and prepared to study, and stick to those times. Donāt forget to put your sleep pattern on a schedule as wellāthereās nothing that dooms college students more than sporadic sleep and excessive caffeine.
Break big projects into small chunks.
Youāve been there before: Itās 5 in the morning, and youāre three hours away from the deadline for your five-page research paper. Youāre grinding through research and throwing words on the page, and you have⦠one paragraph. Your adrenaline kicks in, and a sense of urgency and despair overwhelms you. You curse the sky, and think to yourself āHow did I get myself in this situation?ā
When you procrastinate and save big projects for the last minute, youāre causing yourself undue stress and putting your other coursework on the back burner, which can negatively affect your academic success on multiple levels. But if you break up your big projects into smaller chunks and spread them out across a few weeks or months, youāll avoid this stress and ensure that youāre not falling behind in other classes just to finish the project. Youāll probably end up with a better finished product and a better grade, too. Easier said than done though, right?
Maintain a balance between classes.
Some professors can be incredibly passionate about the classes they teach, and they can make it seem like their class is the most important one on the planet. This is a great mindset to have as a professor, but it doesnāt always make sense to the students. If youāre balancing five or six courses during the semester, you canāt spend 80 percent of your time working on one classāit just doesnāt make sense for your academic success.
Be sure to strike a good time and effort balance between all of your classes. This will keep you on track in each and every course, which keeps your GPA healthy. Wouldnāt you rather have a couple of Aās and three Bās instead of one A+ and a bunch of Cās?
Take advantage of CLEP exams.
College is about learningābut itās also about completing college credits as efficiently as possible. CLEP exams are a great example of streamlining your college experienceāyou can save thousands of dollars and shave semesters off of your college career by using CLEP exams to meet your general education requirements. Now thatās an efficient use of your time!
But CLEP course material isnāt learned overnight; it takes studying and discipline to pass a CLEP exam. Thatās where SpeedyPrep can help. Use our CLEP study guides to accelerate and streamline the CLEP studying process, and pass your courses with flying colors. Get started with SpeedyPrep today!