Second-year biology student Kimora Barrow recalls the moment when she realized she had a problem managing her time.
A senior in high school, she had already fallen behind in her statistics class early in the semester. Come finals week, she rushed to catch up on all of her homework and exams, but it was impossible.
“I found a solution, but it was still very stressful,” Barrow said. She dropped the class.
Barrow isn’t the only college student—at AACC or otherwise—who struggles with time management.
According to the productivity experts at Lifehack Method, a productivity coaching site, 82% of people don’t have a time-management system in place, and the average worker spends 51% of the workday on tasks of little to no value.
Third-year transfer studies student Ev Dahl is one of them.
“I’ve got a very poor working memory,” Dahl said. “So it’s like, ‘I need to sit down and do my homework but, oh wait, I should go do my laundry,’ or, ‘Oh, no, wait, I got to, like, organize this one thing.’ And then it’s like, the whole day goes by and I haven’t done anything fully, because I’ve done 13 things partially.”
Carolyn Pratt, the department chair for Achieving College and Career Advancement, said she advises every student to have a calendar, whether it’s digital or paper.
“Some strategies I suggest are having a digital calendar, having an Outlook calendar, which AACC offers to you to schedule,” Pratt said. “What times am I going to be in class? What times am I going to be at work? What times are [for spending time with] my loved ones? So I know that I’m also getting time to see the people I want to see, utilizing those digital calendars.”
Some students recommend the same thing.
“It makes me so much better when I have an app [like Google Tasks] that I can put in everything I have to do in a week and then I can set each day for each, so I can make myself do it that day and
not have to do five assignments in one night,”
first-year engineering student Kylie O’Neil said. Barrow said she tried using a paper planner, but “I never remember to write things down.” So she switched to an online calendar.
Barrow also estimates how long each task will take.
“So like, if it takes me 30 minutes, I’ll set a … reminder for my next assignment at, like, 6:30 p.m. and so on. The only tip I have is, like, just a time block.”
Third-year plant science student Reni Zolt said she recommends that students keep trying to find their personal balance.
“I would say give yourself time to do the things that you want to do productively, and then also give yourself time to really buckle down and think,” Zolt said. “Just getting it started and getting the ball rolling, you will not be disappointed. It will help greatly.”
