Time Management

Manage your time wisely.

Our students are very busy, so here are several suggestions that will help you succeed.

• Set priorities. Priorities help you focus on what must be done and in what areas you can allow more flexibility. Begin by identifying your academic, personal, family, and occupational priorities. Once you know what must get done, then you are ready to begin the time management process.
• Keep a weekly planner. It's easiest to follow a schedule if you have all of your obligations on one schedule. That includes courses and study time, family commitments and your work schedule.
• Plan specific study times. Allow enough time each week so that you keep current with your reading assignments in all of your courses. This way, when it's time to study for a test you can devote all of your energies to studying, not spend most of your time trying to catch up with your reading. You should spend two or three hours studying outside of class for every hour you are in class.
• Learn to say "no." Time is a precious commodity and something to be guarded. Sometimes it is difficult to say "no", but it is also necessary.
• Take advantage of small amounts of time. It is amazing what can be accomplished in small amounts of time. Short breaks between tasks at home or at work can provide the time to review your lecture notes or what you have underlined in your text. Or, you might listen to a taped lecture while doing the dishes or mowing your lawn.

Make and maintain a study schedule.

An expectation for college classes is that a student should expect to study two to three hours per week, outside of class, for each credit hour spent in class.

Therefore, a student taking 12 credit hours should expect to spend 24 to 36 hours each week studying outside of class. Combined with time spent in class, this works out to a total of 36 to 48 hours of academic work per week.

One way to ensure successful studying is to create a study schedule. You can do this in many different forms such as using a traditional paper planner, an online calendar system or your mobile device. Begin with creating an hourly breakdown of the hours you are awake each day of the week. Fill in the times in the same order as the time chart below (hours in class, then studying, then eating, then working, etc.). 

If you need assistance creating a study (or time management) schedule, contact your Success Coach.

There are only so many hours in a week! Calculate how many hours you spend in class, studying, eating, working, grooming, exercising and sleeping in order to assess your personal use of time management. From there, you can see how much time remains for extra activities such as socializing and personal time.