As a familiar topic for students of all levels, studying can be emotionally draining if certain aspects aren't managed correctly. While we aren't born with time management skills, we have access to plenty of free online resources to help teach us to organise our study time effectively.
If we don't manage our time effectively, then we will put ourselves into stressful situations. We all know that the most common enemy of a student is procrastination — which is avoidance of doing work to prevent the feeling of being stressed.
According to a 2013 survey conducted by the
Nightline Association, more than 65% of participating UK students are qualified as stressed. Stress can often be undermined and frowned upon, however acute stress has been proven to have a damaging effect on both academic and professional work performance.
In this post, we are providing you with 4 resourceful tips, tools and techniques to improve your overall time management skills when studying, resulting in a stress free learning process.
1. Planning and Roadmaps
The single worst thing you can do as a student is to dive head first in to an assignment without knowing what you're suppose to do. So it is essentially that you take some time to plan.
Of course, the word 'planning' may sound tedious. But what if I told you you'll actually save time by adding an additional 5 minute planning session before starting your assignments, essays, coursework or dissertation?
Prior to starting your academic work, whether it's your Functional Skills Maths homework or a University paper, allocate these spare 5 minutes to do some road mapping. Creating
mind-maps are a quick and easy way to structure your wandering mind on to paper.
Your planning sessions can help to give you a guideline and direction. And since you've written it down, you won't spend so much energy relying on your memory.
2. Create a To-Do List
When tons of work piles up, we more than often panic. Taking a structured approach to managing an outstanding list of tasks doesn't have to be a lengthy process, similarly to planning a school or university project.
That's is why it is essential to create a to-do list. Our brains are made up of two parts. The conscious part and the subconscious part. The conscious part of our brains is responsible for short term memory and is a rather limited resource. The subconscious part is responsible for forming long term memory. It is more powerful and works alongside our conscious part of brain.
When we are overwhelmed, our conscious brain works on overdrive. And as result, we begin to feel stressed.
Rather than accepting this overload, use the luxury of pen, paper or alternatively a virtual notepad or diary. Writing down your list of tasks to create a to-do list will help you feel less overwhelmed.
A brilliant book to read on the above technique is
Getting Things Done by David Allen. In this book, Allen, teaches a technique where individuals are asked to unload as much as possible in forms of diaries, notes or plans, resulting in a stress free experience.
3. Spread Out Your Study Time
When it comes to studying for exams, we tend to leave things to the last minute. If we have an exam in five days time, we might spend four of those days watching Netflix, and then pull an all-nighter day five.
This is clearly not productive. It is adding more unnecessary stress.
Rather than leaving everything to the last minute, you can schedule in 45 minute study sessions for each day. And you'll still have time to watch your favourite shows.
Use your planning initiative learnt from step one and utilise it within the bigger picture. Scatter your work wisely to improve your overall work quality, whilst reducing the amount of stress.
4. The Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro technique was created by an Italian gent called Francesco Cirillo. It was a very popular time management strategy back in the 1980s. And recently, it has started to make a comeback.
The technique is designed to decrease mental fatigue and improve creativity and mental freshness.
This simple process consists of splitting your time every day on a per project basis, with regularly set breaks. This works by setting yourself to work for 25 minutes then taking you take a 5 minute break. Each 25 minute burst is called a 'pomodoro', meaning tomato in Italian. Following 4 pomodoro cycles, a 20 minute can be taken.
Try it, this could be the method for you!
I highly advise you to explore each of these tips above and find out which one works for you.
Thanks for reading. Do you have any other tips to help you manage your time and productivity? Please let us know in the comments section below.
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