Four Basic Steps Towards Time Management Success: Setting Realistic Goals

In our last post, I discussed a few organizational tools that can give any student a great start to better time management. I personally prefer a combination of a calendar for visual reminders on due dates and long-term projects and a task list for quick updates on completed and upcoming short-term work. Students will not be able to gain the greatest benefit from either of these tools or any other, however, unless they are able to set realistic goals as a guideline. In order to make any technique truly effective, it is necessary to break down goals into manageable chunks of work, set within practical time frames.

College students are often assigned, usually in addition to daily work, small projects that are due only a week or two later. Initially, I would fall into the trap of viewing the individual assignments as one large task, which was intimidating to begin and usually made procrastination seem a lot more appealing. But after a few tries with this approach, I realized that breaking down the projects into manageable, smaller tasks was a better way to avoid procrastination and complete the tasks efficiently. Smaller goals also tend to take less time to achieve, so there’s no worn out feeling as I progress towards the larger goal of completing the assignment.

Setting realistic goals means making sure they’re reasonably spaced out as well. In college, you’ll have multiple essays and assignments from each of your courses due alongside each other, if not on the same dates, so being over-ambitious and trying to take on a full workload within a short span of time is likely to be more stressful than rewarding. Rather, aim for a moderate pace as you plan when and how you will carry out the tasks for each project. Make sure to give yourself extra time for assignments that you may not be too confident about, not only for yourself to work through them, but also for visiting professors during office hours or, if appropriate, when contacting classmates for help.

Once you’ve marked up your calendar or to-do list with reasonable goals, you’ll find that actually beginning work on them will become much easier. In our next blog post, I’ll share a few tips on working through these tasks effectively, without burning out half way through.