November is usually the time a lot of us are trying to salvage the semester. This month is our wake-up call. Maybe we didn’t do well on a previous midterm, or have been thus far ignoring our work. Whatever the reason, at this point, our motivator should be our grades. There’s no better way of saving our grades than efficient time management and scheduling.

The weekends are bursting with time. Therefore, there’s no reason to cram all your required studying into the weekdays. Study on the weekend as well. Balancing your academics between the weekdays and weekends is extremely crucial to efficient success.

Most students want the entire weekend to themselves, and so do I. However, this attitude is detrimental in the long run. Allotting time to academics on the weekend is beneficial. Doing so alleviates some pressure on the weekdays. Also, it keeps our brain fresh and helps us retain the information learnt over the week. [[Student source here]]

This is where time management comes in. Lack of time management affects us in more ways than one. Chronic procrastination, decline of academic performance, lack of sleep, and poor diet are all hallmarks of poor time management.

In fact, according to the University at Buffalo’s counseling office, about 25 percent of students become chronic procrastinators. (http://education.seattlepi.com/lack-time-management-affects-college-students-1093.html) Procrastinating is not a good sign.

A logical way of saving time is simply cutting down on procrastination.

Procrastination is the arch nemesis of time management. Emerge victorious against it, and you’re good to go. Not procrastinating will vastly increase the amount of work you get done.

The University Counseling Center might help us in this regard. According to the Center, working to acquire an adequate understanding of what is necessary to accomplish a task within a given time frame is a solid start to beating procrastination. (https://counselingcenter.illinois.edu/brochures/overcoming-procrastination)

Basically, what they’re saying is that it’s an astute idea to understand how much work it takes to do something in a specific amount of time.

Studying in the library is a clever tip too. Procrastinating is much more difficult when surrounded by people hard at work. [[Or here]]

Another excellent method of time management is proper scheduling. It’s obvious that college students have a lot to do and think about. What would benefit us the most is a comprehensive schedule.

Not a schedule that only comprises of classes, but everything you could think of. Plan out your classes, breaks, homework, quizzes, parties, workouts, money, etc. Put anything feasible in there.

A schedule like this would help us keep track of even the smallest things. It would be flexible as well, meaning we could switch around things easily, and also arrange items by relevance or due date. Since it would ideally contain everything we needed to remember and do, there would be no need to look anywhere else for reminders. The schedule would be are go-to guide for almost everything. [[Or here]]

Although such a detailed schedule requires a little time and research, the alternative is much worse.

While these skills and tips are advantageous now, they go beyond college as well. They could be easily applied to the distant future too. Time management and proper scheduling are crucial to not only our careers, but everyday life as well. They should be in it for the long haul.

While it’s true that many people are efficient and organized, most aren’t. That’s why time management skills are vital to us college students. Especially during November. This month is our saving grace. We’ve got to use whatever we can to help us, whether it’s detailed schedules or tips to stop procrastination. Time management and scheduling should be the foundation. It’s best we start now, rather than when it’s too late.