Can you remember the dread that would set in slowly after the first few weeks of the school year? After the excitement of meeting new friends and attending new classes wears off, most students start wondering how they are going to achieve their academic goals Time Management Tools for Students.

Unfortunately, most students don’t consider time management as one of the ways to get good grades. You need to create a to-do list, prioritize, work on your assignments and projects, and get enough sleep to excel in school. However, these great tips only go so far. To optimize your time and complete your assignments on time, you need to be tactful.

For students, time management is all about being purposeful with your day. You need to take control of your time if you want to boost your productivity, focus, and balance. To help you achieve your academic goals, here are a few practical tips and tools that will help you beat procrastination and stay focused. Let’s get started!

1. Plan your day using a daily schedule template

Classes, workshops, and seminars might take a huge part of your day. However, how you schedule your time will make all the difference. While most education experts emphasize the importance of time management for students using to-do lists, you need to master your daily schedule.

Having in place a schedule template will make it easier for you to stay organized, focus on your important tasks, and help you overcome procrastination. Among the ways successful people use to manage their time well is time blocking. Time blocking involves creating a template of how you plan to spend every minute in your day.

This may sound exciting and daunting at the same time. However, it will pay off in spades in the long run. To get started:

• Create bookends: To make the most out of your time, you need to be purposeful with your day begins and ends. Analyze your morning and evening routines and block time for your high priority tasks.
• Set time for your high priority tasks: Next, you need to allocate enough time for your high priority tasks. This will mean conducting extensive research, writing, or doing something different. The key is to be purposeful about your tasks and when you are going to do them.
• Schedule breaks and catch up tasks: For your schedule to work, you need to be realistic. Studying continuously without taking short breaks will lead to a lack of focus, fatigue, and poor performance. Scheduling breaks to chat with friends, exercise or have a snack is important if you want to be happy and motivated.

2. Understand how you are spending time

According to custom essay papers, your schedule will help you figure out how an ideal day should look like for you. However, to build time management habits, you need to figure out how you are spending your time. If you don’t understand where your time goes every single day, it will be difficult to build time management techniques and improve your performance.

To track your time effectively, there are two options:

• Find time to write a time log – This is a manual tracking tool that will help understand how you spend every moment in your day.
• Use free time management apps to log your time

Similar to how a dieter tracks everything he or she puts in the mouth, so should you track everything you do to know which activities are consuming a lot of time.

3. Set goals to measure progress

Goal-setting is one of the most effective techniques that will keep you motivated in the long run. Unfortunately, most students set their goals in the wrong way. Instead of focusing on the process, they focus on goals. And goals are the result.

Only a handful of people will tell you how to set goals in the right way. Instead of starting with your goals and working backward, you need to focus on what needs to be done to achieve and even surpass the goal. What are some of the things you can do every day to achieve your goals? You need to focus on building positive habits and consistent progress.

For instance, if you are required to write a 5000-word essay by the end of two weeks or a month, instead of being overwhelmed by the task, set a daily goal of writing five hundred words only. If you are consistent, you’ll achieve your goal in a few days. And have plenty of time to revise and edit. As you make progress every day, you’ll be motivated to do more meaningful work.

4. Break large projects into small manageable chunks

According to college paper, part of the goal-setting process breaking down large goals into small daily tasks. This will not only keep you focused but also stop you from procrastinating. It’s easy to procrastinate tasks when they feel huge or complex.

However, all you need to build momentum is take the first step. To manage your time effectively, start small, and decide what the next practical step on a project is and then list out the next series of steps with deadlines.

For instance, if you are required to write essay, you may need to break the project down into a few simple steps:

• Visit the library and look for books on the topic
• Skim the table of contents
• Write down paragraph headings
• Highlight the main points and so on.

All the steps listed above are practical and they can be fixed into your daily schedule.

5. Don’t fall for the Planning Fallacy

When you start scheduling your daily tasks, it’s easy to get so optimistic about how much you can do during the day. Psychologists call this the Planning Fallacy.

The planning fallacy harms how you manage your time for several reasons:

• You are more likely to get frustrated when tasks take longer than anticipated
• You might need to push back your schedule to compensate for extra time spent on a task
• You might think you have a lot of time to do everything throughout the day

To avoid falling into this trap, you need to familiarize yourself with tasks and create a schedule accordingly. If it’s something you’ve worked on before, give yourself a few minutes to figure out how much time you’ll need. If it’s something new, double the time.

Time management apps

Thanks to the rapid advancement of technology, you can manage your time using apps. Today, there so many apps available for you. How do you choose the right ones? It all depends on your needs.

1. Rescue Time

If you are not using your time sensibly, Rescue Time will help you achieve this goal by sending you weekly reports and indicating the activities that are stealing your time. Apart from the auto time tracking feature, this app has a distraction blocker and great reporting tools.

2. Remember the Milk

If you’ve been struggling to manage your tasks and you’ve been working on different devices, this app is for you. It is a free tool that is compatible with lots of apps. It also enables you to sync all your devices to manage your time effectively.

3. Focus Keeper

This app is ideal for people who procrastinate or who are frustrated by tasks and projects. It has a simple user interface that can be customized according to your needs. Focus Keeper boosts your focus and eliminates anxiety.

Conclusion

Managing time is not simple especially for students. With pressure from social life and school assignments and projects, it’s easy to lose time on low priority tasks. By following our advice and using the tools that we’ve recommended, you’ll achieve all your goals Time Management Tools for Students.

Author Bio:

Thomas Lanigan has work experience for 4 years as a marketing specialist, social media manager, assignment writer, lab report writer, assignment helper, journalist, and editor. Also, he is a professional content writer and provide in such topics as blogging, marketing features, progressive education programs, business.

Read more: ANGEL NUMBER 111