Ironic, isn’t it? – how I, a self-certified procrastinator, is writing an article on time
management. I’ve made it through all of elementary, middle school, of the international school in Mumbai and now the first half of 9th grade being as bad as I am at time management. While I have gotten better over the years, some old habits never die easy – till date, I have written three IRs for Global Perspectives and 90% of each one was done around a week before the deadline. A part of me believes this is a well-functioning system – despite finishing the IR last-minute, I got a decent grade. However, that doesn’t make me forget the hell I went through finishing it last minute. I’d rather wish that you don’t suffer the same way so here are a few tips that I have learned over the years on how to manage time better:
PRIORITIZE: You need to prioritize tasks – randomly picking or doing the easiest ones first is never going to work. A common method for prioritizing is the Eisenhower Matrix This method, while it is very efficient for office workers, isn’t the best for students. We don’t have a subordinate we can delegate revising chapter 1 of Computer Science to! Neither do we have any ‘unimportant tasks’ when it comes to studying for exams. So, what if we exchange ‘important’ and ‘not important’ with ‘easy’ and ‘hard’? Do the hard but urgent tasks first– I KNOW you want to ‘get done with’ the easy ones first but remember that harder tasks require more energy. You can finish the easier task with a tired brain but not a hard task.
PLANNING: Out of everything I mention in this article, planning is the one you can do in many ways– bullet journals, daily to-do lists, weekly to-do lists or just the last minute, in- your-head plan that you forget within minutes. I think scheduling works best. Make a list of each task you need to do today and calculate how much time you’ll take for each of them. Then, divide them throughout the day leaving breaks in between. If you have multiple small tasks, group them together into a one-hour block. This not only helps reduce your anxiety but also lets you know if you need to shift a task to another day.
DIVIDE BIG TASKS: Instead of saying you’ll finish studying for the Chemistry test by the end of the month, aim to finish a number of chapters weekly. This not only makes the task seem less intimidating but also places each small task into your urgent column of the matrix. If you didn’t do this, studying for Chemistry would continuously fall under ‘not urgent’ until it suddenly pops into urgent the week before the test.
GET RID OF THE ‘ALL OR NOTHING’ MINDSET: Say you took a bit longer for one task than anticipated, you still have another one-hour task left but it’s already 7:30pm. You have only half an hour until the time by which you should’ve finished all your tasks. Don’t waste those 30 minutes just because the task requires one hour and don’t rush through the task to finish it in 30 minutes either. Do a part of the task – you don’t have to do everything at once.
TAKE BREAKS: This is cliché; but it really is crucial. Some believe they are wasting time during breaks but, the time you ‘waste’ on a break will actually save you much more when you’re studying. It’s much easier to focus when you’re well-rested. If you finish a task earlier than expected, don’t immediately start a new task – allow yourself to rest in that extra time AND in your scheduled break. You not only deserve it; you also need it. That is all I have for now. There are multiple resources online that provide more detailed explanations on each of my points but this was a basic guide to get you started. I hope this helps both you and I since most of us have our mid-term exams going on right now. All the
best and don’t forget to take care of yourselves!
Also read- How can students cope up with exam pressure/academic stress?
https://www.adityabirlaworldacademy.com/blog/how-can-students-cope-up-with-exam-pressure-academic-stress
How to survive exam season-
https://www.adityabirlaworldacademy.com/blog/how-to-survive-exam-season
How to make kids enjoy reading? -
https://www.adityabirlaworldacademy.com/blog/how-to-make-kids-enjoy-reading
