How Students Are To Manage Their Time

This article is about how to manage your time throughout your student life to put yourself in the best possible chance to get good results. Whether you are a student or a working adult you have to prioritise the list of things to do as they are not all equally important or urgent. They are all either important (goal directed) or not important and urgent or not urgent. Important goals are the things that lead us to our goals and non important ones do not. The activities can be classified into four and their order of priorities is as follows:

A1. Important and urgent

A2. Important and not urgent

B1. Not important and urgent

B2. Not important and not urgent

A1. Important and urgent activities are the ones which are goal directed and require our immediate attention and if ignored we will be in trouble. Examples are starting a project assignment or homework to be handed in the next day, burning the midnight oil to prepare for tomorrow's test  or  exam. They are important because those activities involve working towards the outcome of our results and urgent because they must  be done as soon as possible and they are very stressful and often lead to average or poor results. People who procrastinate will find themselves in this category often and it should be reduced as much as possible. All A1 activities have to be done first and they are usually stressful  and thus need to be reduced by spending more time on A2.

A2. Important and not urgent activities are the ones where effective people spend most of their time. The work here are similar to important and urgent because they are goal directed but do not need our immediate attention. The due dates are usually weeks or  months in the future, thus if they are left till the last minute they become urgent and lead to stress and poor results again. Examples of important and non urgent activities are starting your projects and assignments straight away, prepare for your final exams early, do  frequent exercise and eat healthy food to ensure that your mind and body are in tip top condition during the examination period. Average or poor students do not have the discipline to start important work till the last moments. If they spend most of their time in this category, they will find that working on them are not stressful and can think clearly and give their best which will lead to good results. They will notice that work is not stressful and may even be fun.

B1. After you have finished A1 and A2 activities, then we can afford to go and do the not important and urgent activities (B1). They are not important because they are not goal directed but urgent because they need to be done straight away. Things like answering the ringing telephone, going to the movies with friends, watching the next episode of your favourite T.V. series, answering emails are urgent. Too much time spent  here will lead back to A1. Time spent here can unwind us and relaxes the mind.

B2. Students who spend most of their time in not important and not urgent activities are lazy and unmotivated. Examples of B2 activities are things like spending too much time on watching T.V., sleeping, surfing the internet, playing computer games, etc. They are usually fun activities and can be addictive. If you notice that you are spending much of your time on B2 activities, then you will get poor results. You should only spend your time here after A1, A2 and B1 activities are accomplished.

Successful students spend 60% of their time on A2, 20% on A1, 15% on B1 and 5% on B2 activities. Discipline is essential for success in anything and they have the discipline to start their goal directed activities early and as a result minimised the need for A1 activities. Average students spend most of their time oscillating between A1 and B1 activities.

An analogy would be our health. If we take care of our health in life by eating healthy food, exercise regularly, go for frequent medical  checkups (A2 activity) then this will reduce the chances of contracting a serious health problem later in life that need urgent, expensive medical treatments to save our lives (A1 activity).