Study Skills 102: Best Way To Manage Time

You can work more efficiently by managing your time rather than working harder or longer. You may organize your study time, establish priorities, make lists, and divide work into manageable chunks. This article explains how to start time management.

Managing Your Time

Time is incredibly valuable. It is our responsibility as students to make the best use of our time. Even if we know we don’t have enough time to complete our assignments, we nonetheless tend to say as much. Therefore, effective time management is essential if we are to study, complete assignments, and work on other projects on schedule. The secret to saving time is to never put things off!

Study Challenges

Studying is crucial for any educational endeavor, but the online learning environment poses certain unique study problems that you may not encounter in a typical classroom setting. This means that if you want to achieve in your online class, you must have excellent study abilities!

Discipline, responsibility, and motivation are qualities that all students must possess to maximize their academic performance. However, the degree of liberty provided by the online learning system can provide new obstacles for online students. This is why it’s critical that you can honestly and effectively examine your study skills and habits, as well as create a method for yourself that will allow you to be most effective.

Time Management

We’ve broken things down for you into three simple steps, so let’s go through them one by one.

Step 1: Determine your time-management style.

One of the first things you’ll want to do is figure out how you manage your time; we’ve designed a 6-question survey to help you get your time-management personality profile. Remember that your responses should reflect what you likely would do in a given situation, not what you believe.

Quiz on Personality Profiles

Quiz to Determine Your Time Management Personality

One of the first things you’ll want to do is figure out how you manage your time; we’ve created a 6-question survey to help you get your time management personality profile. Remember that your comments should reflect what you would do in a given situation, not what you believe to be the “right” answer.

1. Your instructor has just given your class the questions for your first essay, which is due in two weeks. How do you continue from here?

Choose a prompt and start working on a thesis right away. It is better to get it out of the way!
Read the prompts and let them sink in for a week or so. You’ll have one more week to complete the assignment, correct?

Read the prompts and play around with concepts, but don’t start writing until the day before. You swear it’s all in your mind somewhere!

It depends on how much work you have in your other subjects. However, you may forget about it until a few hours before the assignment’s deadline and then request an extension.

2. You are working on a group project that requires you to share tasks with three other classmates. When do you typically finish your part?

First. Then you’re finished and won’t have to worry about it. It may also provide you with time to make any necessary changes afterward.
One or two of the others have contributed their things to the group, but certainly not the last. You wanted to see how they handled it first.

Maybe last, but certainly before the assignment deadline, and ideally before any of the other group members inquire about it.

Last. You’ll wait until everyone else has completed their tasks to ensure you’re not duplicating efforts. Whatever, this is why you despise group work.

3. Your instructor recently uploaded the instructions for your next assignment, and you read them but don’t quite grasp what he’s asking for in one section. What would you probably do?

Maybe last, but certainly before the assignment deadline, and ideally before any of the other group members inquire about it.

Try to figure things out for yourself. You’re pretty confident you understand what he’s saying, and you’ll give it your all.

Do not say anything until after the assignment is due. Most likely, the rest of the class felt the same way!

Send him an email that afternoon. If he does not react that night, email him again. This is your biggest nightmare—you simply want to know what he wants!!

4. The course you’re taking needs you to post on a weekly discussion forum by Sunday night every week so that the class may discuss everyone’s contributions on Monday. When should you submit your posts?

• Sunday night. You usually forget during the weekend!
• Tuesday night, following the first day of classes that week. Then it is out of the way.
• Thursday or Friday nights. You should take some time to process the week’s talk and gather your views.
• Monday at 3 a.m. That still qualifies as Sunday night, correct?

5. You have an essential assignment due Monday morning plus a social/work/family commitment that will keep you occupied for the majority of the weekend. It is now Wednesday, the day before the assignment is due. How would you handle this dilemma?

You tell yourself you’ll finish it by Friday night so you can enjoy your weekend, but there’s still a little work to do on Sunday—no big issue.

You promise yourself that you’ll finish it by Friday night, and you succeed by working on it over three days.

You finished it on the designated day, which was yesterday. Done!

You tell yourself you’ll take the weekend off, then stay up late on Sunday or get up early on Monday to finish. It is not a final, and you have a life.

6. You must read 150 pages before the next class meeting. You have four days to do so. What are you most likely to do?

Dividing 150 pages by 4 days yields slightly less than 40 pages every day. You choose to break it up this way since it allows you to look over your notes and highlights while also coming up with questions for the instructor.

• After a lengthy week, dividing 150 pages by two days results in 75 pages each day. Achievable.
• 150 pages, the day before the due date. It’s okay that you did this to yourself.
• How long does it take to skim the text for important terms and/or obtain a summary online?
• Identify your time management style.

Now that you have a better understanding of the many time-management personality types, do you believe your personality profile matches the student you were in the past? Has your prior method of doing things worked for you, or do you believe it’s time to change? Remember that we can always improve! See if you fall into one of the following categories.

Characteristic Type: The Prompt Learner

• Characteristics: You enjoy creating checklists and get a fantastic sense of accomplishment when you mark things off your list. As it allows you to maintain control, you should begin working on assignments as soon as possible—and perhaps even begin brainstorming beforehand.
• Strengths: You are determined to find a way to accomplish your goals and you know what you want. You never really struggle with motivation.
• Challenges: Occasionally, you may get overly focused on finishing tasks as soon as possible and neglect to give yourself adequate time to thoroughly consider problems in all of their complexity.
• Advice for Success: Since you’re well-organized and diligent in your coursework, remember to set aside some time to genuinely enjoy your lessons. Recall that education offers more than just checking boxes and deadlines; it gives you the chance to consider complex intellectual issues for which there may be no obvious solutions.

Personality Type: Equilibrium

• Characteristics: You are prepared to go above and beyond to maximize your academic performance since you are aware of your true potential. Whether it’s a skill you’ve learned over time or something you were born with, you should have the fundamental organizing abilities needed to excel in any online course—as long as you maintain your equilibrium.
• Strengths: Your true strength is your capacity to be well-rounded. You may not always complete homework exactly, but you are remarkably consistent and perform admirably in class.
• Challenges: Because you’re so consistent, you can get yourself in a rut where you cruise through class rather than truly challenge yourself.

Tips for Success: Rather than merely doing what works, utilize each lesson as an opportunity for personal development by interacting critically with the topic and constantly stretching the boundaries of your expectations for yourself.

Personality Type: The Pressure Cooker

• Traits: You always complete tasks at the last minute. Hey, it takes time to come up with great ideas!
• Strengths: You do well under pressure, and when you do sit down to complete a task, you can labor for hours. In these situations, you can be incredibly focused and block out the rest of the world to get things done.
• Challenges: You may use your capacity to work under pressure as an excuse to postpone. Sure, you can focus when the deadline is tomorrow, but is it truly the finest work you could do if you had a couple of days to spare?

Tips for Success: Set yourself short, attainable deadlines, and stick to them. Make sure they are goals that you can (and will) achieve in a day. Then don’t let yourself make excuses. You’ll discover that it’s much more pleasurable to complete academics without tension. Who would have known?

Personality Type: The Improviser.

• Traits: You typically wait until the last minute to complete tasks, but this is because you’ve been able to get away with it in previous classes. Sometimes you miss an assignment or have to appear to have read something you haven’t, but everyone does it, right?
• Strengths: You think rapidly on your feet, which is a legitimate asset, but it may also be a crutch that keeps you from excelling in class.
• Challenges: As the adage goes, “old habits die hard.” If you discover that you lack a foundation of discipline and personal accountability, changing might be tough, especially if the course subject gets difficult or you find yourself fighting to keep up with the speed of the class.

Tips for Success: The good news is that you can turn things around! Make a plan to arrange your time and supplies fairly, and stick to it. Also, don’t be hesitant to approach your instructor for help; however, if you do so earlier rather than after, you may lag.

Create a schedule.

Now that you’ve analyzed how you’ve done things in the past, consider how you may improve your time management by creating a timetable! The greatest timetables include some flexibility because you will encounter unexpected scenarios and circumstances during your time as a student.

Your schedule will be unique to you, based on how much detail you find useful. Certain elements, including due dates, exam dates, and discussion hours, should always be included in your schedule. However, you may find it helpful to break down assignments into steps (or milestones) that can be scheduled. Again, it all depends on what works best for you—do you want to keep track of the most important deadlines? Or does it help you arrange your days so you stay on track? Your responses to these questions will differ depending on the course, the intricacy of your schedule, and your personal preferences.

Your schedule will also change depending on the course you are taking. So, get out your syllabus and try to identify the rhythm of the lesson by looking at the following factors:

• How frequently does your instructor expect discussion board contributions? When are the initial discussion board contributions due?
• Will there be tests or exams in this course? When are they scheduled?
• Are there assignments or papers? When are they due?

Are there any group or collaborative assignments? You’ll want to pay close attention to the scheduling of any project that requires you to collaborate with others: they take longer to complete when you’re learning online because it’s more difficult to organize times to meet.

There are numerous internet services available to assist you in managing your calendar. Some are simple cloud-based calendars (such as Google Calendar, iCal, and Outlook), while others (such as iHomework) are designed specifically for students.

We all have exactly 168 hours in a week. How do you spend it? And now that you’re a student, how much time will you be willing to dedicate to studying?

Prioritizing Time

Finally, Step 3: Improve your prioritization skills.

Due dates are essential. Set short- and long-term goals accordingly. Ask yourself:

• What needs to be done today?
• What needs to be done this week?
• What needs to be completed by the conclusion of the first month of the semester?
• What needs to be completed by the conclusion of the second month of the semester?
• What needs to be completed by the conclusion of the semester?

Your time is valuable. Treat it accordingly by making the most of it.

Above all, avoid PROCRASTINATION.

Procrastination is the kiss of death for online learners because it is extremely tough to catch up once you are behind.

Do you have trouble procrastinating? We’ll ask you a few questions in this final chapter, and if you find yourself saying, “Sounds like me,” more than you say, “No way,” you’ll need to be on your alert so that procrastination doesn’t become an issue for you.

Procrastination Check List

Consider the topics listed below:

• My paper is due in two days, and I haven’t started writing it yet.
• I had to do an all-nighter to complete an assignment on deadline.
• I’ve turned in an assignment late or requested an extension when I didn’t have a solid reason not to complete it on time.
• I’ve worked right up until an assignment was due.
• I misjudged how long a reading assignment would take and did not complete it on time for class.
• I’ve turned to the internet for information (such as a synopsis of a topic or a book) because I didn’t finish my reading on time.

If these sound like concerns you’ve faced in the past, you should consider whether you have a procrastination problem and how you plan to address it in your future classes. You’ve already invested a significant amount of time, energy, and money in your online studies; don’t waste it!

Procrastination Pie

But do not worry! We’re here to help. The next five components of our “procrastination pie” offer ways to overcome these obstacles:

• Keep your studies “bite-sized”: when faced with 150 pages of reading or 50 questions to do, it’s understandable to feel overwhelmed. What if you decide to read for 45 minutes or solve ten problems? That sounds far more manageable.
• Turn off your phone, close all chat windows, and block distracting websites. The best advice we’ve ever received is to approach your studies as if you were in a movie theater—just turn it off!
• Set up a reward system: if you read for 40 minutes, you get 5 minutes to check your phone. However, keep in mind that reward-based systems are only effective if you follow a code of self-honor.
• Study in a dedicated study area. Avoid using your bedroom for schoolwork due to potential distractions and the urge to take a quick nap.
• Use checklists to make your gradual accomplishments noticeable. Checking items off a “to-do” list can provide a sense of accomplishment and inspiration for some people. When developing this list, be very specific and describe each activity step-by-step.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You’ve made great progress through this Quest for Online Success course. We’ve covered a lot of ground in this module, including time management, organizing assignments, and avoiding procrastination, but there are hundreds more resources available online. Look through some of these to get more assistance; you’re sure to find techniques and tools that suit your unique learning style.