Maximizing Your Minutes: Time Management for College Life

It’s no secret that I enjoy keeping myself busy. But even for someone that has trouble relaxing, things can feel overwhelming and stressful. During my sophomore year of college, I balanced executive positions for two organizations, a job at my school’s recreation center, and of course, classes and social life. Not only was this keeping me busy, but because of the odd hours of my job (often working 5:45-9:00 am shifts), I was unable to keep a consistent schedule. For me, consistency is critical. It makes it easier to remember what is next in my day and not get mixed up with future or past plans. Because I wasn’t able to have this sense of consistency, I developed skills and utilized tools that helped me keep up with myself. 

Everyone has their own system that works for them and their lifestyle, but I’d like to share a few tools that worked for me and I think would be beneficial for a lot of other people too. 

Environment

For me, in order to feel good and want to get things done, the first thing I need to do in the morning is get myself ready. There are three things that prepare me best for the day. The first is making my bed/cleaning my room. When my surroundings are organized, I feel organized and I’m more likely to be productive. The next thing is that I like to work out in the morning because then I already feel accomplished right off the bat. Sometimes this doesn’t work with my schedule and that’s fine but knowing that I tried to make it work or would’ve worked out if I could, is enough. The last thing goes with a favorite saying of mine, “Look good, feel good”. I love putting on an outfit that I put some effort into, putting some makeup on, and making my hair look nice. Taking time to take care of myself in the morning helps me prepare and feel good for the day. 

Healthy Foundation

We’ve all been told about how important sleep and a healthy diet are from a young age, and it’s very true. That’s what fuels your body. I try to get eight hours of sleep every night and I tend to eat super healthy because I’ve been raised that way. But another thing that I want to bring attention to is a healthy mindset. Doing things that keep your mental health up such as working out, reading a book, getting alone time, taking time away from your phone, or anything else that helps your mental health should be done every day. While mental health is important for so many reasons, when it comes to time management I think it is especially important because it keeps you driven and motivated. 

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people constantly complain about how much they have to do and how busy they are when at the end of the day, we are signing ourselves up for these things. I applied to all of the executive positions and jobs and I accepted them knowing the amount of time I would have to commit to them. So I think it’s unfair to constantly complain about how busy we are. With this, keeping my brain healthy, driven, and happy enables me to stay motivated to get these things done as I initially planned when I signed up for them. A healthy mindset also helps when the jobs start to take their toll on you and you begin to get overworked or bored of doing the same thing. For my executive positions within Alpha Phi, there were times when I would really dread dealing with people or planning an event, but when my mind was happy and driven, I had a lot of fun feeling like a leader and engaging with the other members of the chapter and the executive board. 

Planner and Calendar

The next thing that is essential to time management is having a journal and/or calendar. This is where different strategies tend to work for different people. 

The two tools that helped me the most were Google Calendar and my bullet journal. I’m sure most of you don’t know what bullet journals are, but they are a great organizational tool that I’d like to bring some attention to. I use my bullet journal the same way many people use a planner but I am able to be more creative with it. Bullet journals are books with dot grids on every page and the idea is that you can customize the pages however you want. I’ve gone through two bullet journals now and in the first, I took a more traditional approach by drawing each of my spreads. In my second, I scrapbooked the whole thing. Bullet journals are great because you can include things that matter to you such as a mood tracker, expenses tracker, etc. The most important page for my organization was the weekly spreads I made that would have a timetable, my to-dos, and my habit tracker all on the same page. Timetables are crucial for me. I need to be able to clearly see what my day looks like, where I have free time, and how much time I have in the morning and at night. This eliminates any confusion for me when planning my day and keeps me from overbooking myself. 

I also have a planner with a timetable on the pages that I pick up for months I don’t have time to create the spreads for my bullet journal such as during the summer and while I’m abroad. Although I’m missing the creative aspect of the bullet journal, I’m still staying organized and it is less of a time commitment to get the spreads all ready.

Next, I use Google Calendar to put in all of my long-term assignments, tasks, or events. I always go through the syllabus for my classes at the beginning of the quarter and put my assignments in my Google Calendar. If I make any travel plans or have any events for my sorority or friend’s birthdays or anything else of that importance, it goes there as well. 

Overall, having a place where you can write down your plans and to-dos is key. It keeps you from forgetting what you have to do and gives you a place to easily see when you’re busy or not. Having these tools easily accessible is also essential. I like to put my Google Calendar on a widget on the homepage of my iPad so I can always see my assignments for the day when I open my iPad. 

Procrastination

From my experience, the best way to get work done is to get out of the house and into a productive environment then hit the books and work for 30 minutes and take 5-minute breaks. The 5-minute breaks are the real key to productivity. During these breaks, you shouldn’t hop on social media because it’s very likely that you won’t be able to get off. Some alternative options are to take a walk, call a friend or your mom, or grab a snack. One of my favorite places to study is at the library at UCSD, Geisel, and I often take my break getting a snack at Audrey’s Cafe or working on the shared puzzle on the first or second floor. 

Another important tip to getting work done is creating realistic expectations for what you will get done in one day. Sometimes I write down all of my upcoming assignments for the week on Monday as if I will get them done in one day. But in reality, those expectations are unrealistic and I should only aim for the two or three closest assignments. 

Overall, time management is a great skill to have but it takes a lot of experimenting to figure out what works best for you. I hope I was able to share new organizational and time management tips and that they might help some of you!