The first year in high school, college, or university is always difficult. You get overwhelmed with new academic tasks, new friends, new concerns and issues, and more. It may seem to you that you are going to fail everything since you cannot get it ordered by any means. Your main problem is the lack of time. Although you cannot add hours to a day, you can still organize your routine more efficiently. It’s not magic but simple time management. Learn some basic tips and become a successful freshman with no hurdles.
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Get Organized
The primary thing is to get your daily schedule organized. First of all, create a timetable for weekdays and weekends. Use either paper and pen or an appropriate application. Order your events and tasks and calculate the time you necessary to complete them. Don’t hesitate to put quite a number of tasks on your schedule. Still, realize your possibilities and don’t overdo them. Track your performance according to your timetable and adjust it if needed.
Remember to stay flexible. Be prepared to swap some tasks and replace them when needed. Try not to postpone or do multitasking. It will not save you after some force-majeure but make things more tangled and complicated. If you learn to react quickly and not panic over things not going your way, it will be simpler for you to alter your timetable and avoid unnecessary stress.
Set Priorities
Another useful thing is a checklist. Again either done on paper or a smartphone, it will allow you to appoint tasks and follow your progress with no fuss. Still, you cannot write down all the things you need to do and execute them in a row. It is vital to set priorities. To do so, you can use highlighters or in-app color-coding to divide tasks according to their urgency and significance.
Realize that you are not super powerful, and sometimes you won’t find time to perform all the tasks on time, no matter how organized you are. This is not a place to panic and stress out. Just select the task of the lowest priority and find someone to do it for you. Type in “write my assignment for me” in a search line to find appropriate professionals, exchange homework with your peers, and sometimes just skip some assignments for the sake of giving more time to the significant ones.
Benefit from Technologies
You are lucky to have technologies to assist you. Although some people may see the smartphone as a major distraction, it can be your primary tool of time and task management. Calendars and schedules, to-do lists, notes, reminders, notifications, and even all-in-one time-management applications are there to become your personal manager. If used properly, your smartphone can help you to operate flawlessly in academic, social, and private life with minimum effort and time wasted.
Settle Goals
You cannot just get the tasks and do them out of the blue. With no control and vision of the outcomes, it is mainly doomed to failure. Another management strategy is to settle goals properly. There may be long-term and short-term goals. It’s vital to break the latter ones into smaller chunks so that you can operate them bit by bit without leaving them for the last night.
When settling the goal, consider the implementation process and adjust it to your timetable. Visualize the steps to success and outcomes. It will be less challenging for you to perform smaller and bigger tasks according to the requirements and deadlines.
Eliminate Distractions
The biggest threat to your efficient performance as a freshman and efficient time management are distractions. Your task is to eliminate the common distraction before you get to do any job to concentrate easily and finish timely. Here is the list of distractions for you to care about:
- Video games
- Smartphone
- Junk snacks
- Other people
- TV
- Bad light
- Noisy environment.
If nothing of the mentioned above bothers you, but you still keep getting distracted, use the sprint strategy. Set a timer to 15-25 minutes and assign a chunk of work to do at the time. Make a pause after the work session and repeat. The time limits will make you focus on the task and keep a speedy pace easier.
Find Time to Relax
No matter how busy you are, it is significant to find time to relax. Otherwise, you will get drained out quickly and won’t be able to cover even the simplest tasks. Review some tricks to get some rest and recharge your batteries:
- Interchange physical and mental activities
- Spend at least ten minutes a day on things that bring you happiness (a cup of coffee with friends, a walk in the park, online shopping, etc.)
- Meditate or practice breathing techniques
- Switch off the work and studies at the weekends and have healthy and pleasant leisure.
Qualitative leisure will help you regain powers and get inspired to work and study perfectly in your next session. This way, you will reach better results in the end.
Stay Positive
The major factor that will enable you to succeed in all your life spheres and stay well is a positive attitude. If you treat things with ease and don’t overthink your daily challenges, it will be simpler for you to control the time and tasks you have. Reward yourself even for the smallest achievement, have supportive people around, treat failures like user experience, and aim to be happy with the things you have, seeking to improve at the same time.
