Students have an unfair reputation for spending their days sleeping, only emerging from their student accommodation in Southampton or wherever it is they’ve chosen to study, bleary-eyed and hungover, to eat a quick Pot Noodle before going out drinking again. 

 

Why is this reputation unfair?

While it’s undoubtedly true that a lot of student life is based on socialising (i.e. drinking), it’s fair to say that being a student is also hard work and not the easy ride non-students deem it to be.

Although being a student may look like an enviable, carefree life, there’s actually a lot they have to cram into their days if they want to get a good grade in their degree. And, let’s face it, with university fees costing up to £9,250 a year, most students don’t want to waste their time at university coming away with a grade that’s worthless. 

 

Students have to find the time to: 

 

• study (obvs)
• attend lectures and seminars
• have 1 to 1 tutorials with their tutors
• do their assignments 
• go to the library 
• socialise (students are allowed some downtime, no one’s suggesting otherwise!)
• and a lot of students also have to work part-time around their full-time degree in order to pay their bills and expenses

 

So, how to fit it all in? Here are five time-management tips for students of any age. 

 

Make a to-do list 

Everyone loves a to-do list. To make your to-do list a happy thing that makes your life easier and not a source of frustration, you need to order the tasks on it correctly. 

Whether your to-do list is digital, in a diary or on a scrap of paper pinned to the wall, order your tasks in terms of priority from the stuff you really need to do, down to the chores that can wait until later.

You may have heard the term ‘eat the frog’, which advises you to tackle the biggest task or the task you’re looking forward to the least first. While this approach may work for some people, for other people it may not be the best way forward. 

If you’ve got a load of little tasks that you can shoot through, this may be the best way for you. Getting rid of little tasks clears time for you to attempt the big task you’ve been putting off, such as that 2,000-word essay that’s due soon, for example. Yes, we know it seems like there’s always a 2,000-word essay due soon.

 

Make your to-do list manageable 

While to-do lists are a great thing, many people make them unmanageable by putting everything they need to do on them. Yes, they’re called to-do lists because you put things you need to do on them, but you don’t have to put everything you need to do for the rest of your life on one big list. 

You can have a ‘parent’ list if you like, but make a to-do list each evening with the tasks you need to do the next day and only the next day.

Remember to prioritise them in order of importance and if there’s a couple of minor things at the end of the list you didn’t get to, that’s okay, they can go on the list for the next day (put them on the top of the list if they’re things you can’t put off forever).

 

Break up big tasks  

You know that 2,000-word essay we mentioned above? You don’t have to do it all in one go. In fact, we recommend you don’t, especially if it means you’re doing it at the last minute. 

Leaving assignments until the last minute is nerve-wracking and, although some students thrive on adrenaline, it’s not always the best way to get the best grades.

In order to make that big task less daunting, break it up into chunks. Using the essay as an example, assuming you’ve done all the reading required (more on that in a bit), you can write the notes one day, then the outline the next day, then tackle the first draft, then hopefully you’ll have plenty of time to refine, tweak and polish before handing it in (don’t forget the references/bibliography!)

If you’ve got a lot of reading to do, calculate how many days you have to read it, then divide that by chapters/pages, so you have a manageable amount to read each day, rather than trying to read 350 pages in one go because your tutor’s expecting to hear your thoughts on it the next day at the seminar.

 

Stay off social media 

You’ll claw back loads of time if you can resist checking social media every five minutes. And when we say ‘loads of time’, we mean literally hours and hours. 

A study by the University of California showed that it takes an average of 23 minutes to focus again after an interruption. So, not only are you wasting time scrolling through Instagram when you should be studying, you’re not even immediately working to the best of your ability when you get back to your studies. 

We’re not going to suggest you delete Facebook, Twitter and Instagram from your phone because a) we wouldn’t be that cruel; and b) we know you’re not going to do that, but put your phone in another room when you’re studying to avoid temptation.

To prevent yourself clicking on another tab ‘just to quickly look at Facebook’, there are browser extensions for your PC or laptop which can block any website you tell it to block for a time period of your choosing.

These four time-management tips for students are simple but effective strategies that will make a huge difference to how much you get done in a day.