Time Management
Stop and think!
- What is your relationship with time?
- Are you usually early, right on time, or late?
- Do you find yourself often saying, “I wish I had more time?”
- Are you satisfied with your relationship with time or would you like to change it?
- What are your cultural and family values related to time?
Work/School Balance
“You can have it all. Just not all at once.” – Oprah Winfrey
Stop to take stock of the current demands on your time, just looking at school and work for now.
- How many credits are you taking?
- How many hours do you work per week?
| Work | Credits | Study Time | Total |
| 40 | 6 | 12 | 58 |
| 30 | 9 | 18 | 57 |
| 20 | 12 | 24 | 56 |
How do you spend your time?
There are 168 hours in a week. How much time do you average per week on these activities? Are there other things not on this list that take up your 168 hours of time?
- Child Care
- Class
- Community Service / Volunteer
- Commuting / Transportation
- Eating / Food Preparation
- Exercise
- Family
- Friends
- Household / Child Care Duties
- Internet / Social Media / Phone / Texting
- Party
- Recreation / Leisure
- Relationship
- Sleep
- Spirituality / Prayer / Meditation
- Study
- Video Games
- Watching TV or Movies, Netflix, Youtube
- Work / Career
Fixed vs. Free Time
As with a financial budget, your time budget has both fixed and variable expenses.
- Fixed=You have to be there. What are some examples?
- Free=You can use this time however you choose. What are some examples?
- What does this look like for you? What percent of your time is fixed?
- Are you happy with the current balance?
- If not, what can you do to change it?
Prioritizing Goals
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” —Steven Covey
Watch the following video, “Success in the New Economy” (approximately 10 minutes)
Consider these questions:
- Is college for all?
- Is college for you?
- What about student loans?
As you decide how to prioritize your college goals, continue to keep your long-term career and other goals in mind. This willl help you make the best decisions about managing not just your day-to-day schedule but also your college and work schedule over the coming years.
List Your Goals
- Daily—what do you have to accomplish today? Create a list.
- Weekly—what do you have to accomplish this week?
- Monthly—what do you have to accomplish within the month?
- Annually—where do you want to be next year? What milestones will you celebrate?
- Keep your goals in one place. What works for you? Journal? Bulletin board/white board? Apps?
- Break your big goals into manageable chunks. Consider a research paper. How can you break this up to be more manageable?
- Prioritize your goals. Look back at the list of things you need to accomplish today. Now prioritize it from most important to least important.
Coming Back to Time Management
In order to effectively manage your time, it is essential that you do these two things:
- Identify/prioritize your goals, and
- Have the discipline to work toward accomplishing them.
Action item:
Identify a tool you will use to manage your time this semester.
Use that tool throughout the semester. Make adjustments to how you use or update it as needed, but stick with it for the whole semester and then evaluate how it worked so you can decide to continue using it or try something different for next semester.
