5 Time Management Tips for College Students (That ACTUALLY Work)

Are you looking for some time management tips for college students that actually work? You've come to the right place.

Navigating through high school was an affair of its kind – and a tough one to be precise.

Your school life was structured and fully organized on your behalf, with very clear instructions on where you needed to be and what you had to do.

As much as you felt that your teachers and parents were somewhat pesky, especially with their constant reminder for what to do and what not to do, somehow they kept you on your toes.

Now you’re in college, with a lot of free time on your hand and the independence to set your own schedule.

How will you navigate through school and learning with the freedom that college life will bring you?

You can do so by managing your time properly.

So this guide, we’ll give you some time management tips for college students that you can use to navigate through college with ease so that you don’t hit your college freedom limits.

Effective Time Management Tips for College Students

You already know why time management is important in college. At least it helps you to get assignments done in time without falling into the last minutes rash trap.

However, managing time in college can be a challenge because you won't always have someone to tell you what to do ad why. 

To help you stay on the right track, here are the most effective time management tips for college that you can use right now. 

1. Identify What Wastes Your Time and Set Clear Goals

College endows you with a lot of freedom to do what you want and when you want. That makes it quite easy to get distracted and pretty much lose your focus along the way.

Given that you want to get the most out of your stay in college, study hard, and pass your exams, it’s important to pay attention only to what really matter.

First, start by figuring out what draws your utmost focus from your studies and assignments.

It could be you’re spending a lot of time on social media. Or you spend too much time browsing the internet. Or you spend a lot of time texting and making phone calls and ignoring your studies.

If it helps, create a checklist to help you determine how much time you spend on activities such as browsing, streaming, and social media. Then try to optimize your time by lowering the amount of time you spend on these activities.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that while these outside class activities are important, they shouldn’t take up so much of your time in college. 

2. Don’t Hesitate to Seek Help with Your Assignments

There will come a time when you have so many assignments than you can handle within the given deadline. Those are the days when you’re more than likely to find college more overwhelming than you ever thought.

For many of us, the demand to complete a series of schoolwork in a given amount of time may feel somewhat intimidating and undeservingly demanding. And the free time you once thought you’d have for the rest of your college life shortly falls to nothing.

Here’s the thing, though:

You don’t have to struggle to complete overwhelming assignments on your own. You can ask for academic help if you have tight deadlines or there are concepts that you find difficult to understand.

If the assignment in question isn’t too difficult, but you’re still confused about a few concepts about the paper, you can easily get help from your fellow course mates.

3. Create a To-Do List to Manage Your Time in College

We get it.

You aren’t idle by any means, but with a lot of time on your hand, it can be quite easy to do so many things at once but end up achieving nothing at the end of the day. 

This is where prioritization comes in.

Prioritization isn’t exactly about what to do first followed by another activity. It’s about identifying the most important college activities and scheduling more of your time to get these tasks done.

Start by looking at your weekly college schedule. Determine what you’ll need to do every day.

Then write down the tasks for each day in the order of importance. Now create a weekly To-Do list (or worksheet) and assign enough time to each task, with the least significant activity taking the least of your time.

With a weekly To-Do worksheet, you have a plan for an entire week. So as each day ends and ushers in another, you’ll always look forward to accomplishing something.

4. Do One Thing at a Time, Starting with the Small Tasks

If you’ve made yourself to believe that you can handle multiple tasks at once in college, chances are you’re going to fail more than you’ll likely succeed.

Studies show that multitasking can damage your brain, not to mention you tend to get a few tasks completed successfully or none completed at all.

The fact that juggling between college tasks and assignments makes you less productive means you may not even be able to complete your work in time and earn the marks you deserve.

So do one thing at a time, starting with the smallest assignments and tasks on to the bigger ones.

If you have a big project that may take a big part of your day, and its deadline is favorable, break the project into small bits that you can easily manage.

Avoid the late hour rush. Rather, utilize your time properly to get your tasks and assignments completed even before the day of submission arrives. You can create a checklist or schedule for this so that you’re able to handle tasks with ease. 

5. Use Technology to Make College Time Management Easier

What’s the point of overloading your brain with too much school stuff when you can take advantage of education technology to make manage your time and make your college life easy?

 From calendar to note taking to reminder apps, there are literally dozens of tech-based education solutions that you can use to manage your time effectively.

Take the reminder app for example. It keeps you on toes on what to do and when. So you can easily get down to the task from the get go. And when you turn on to your checklist for that particular reminder, it’s easy to figure out what to do and in what sequence.