No matter the goals you have set for the new calendar year, or those you are about to set as semester exams are behind you and a new grading period begins, switching your focus from setting your goals to following through on them most likely means making at least some adjustments to how you have been managing your time. As with many other study skills, time management is a skill that should be continually adjusted and improved. Last year at this time, I wrote a separate post about using time wisely after I’d written about goal setting in the new calendar year and at the start of a new grading period. Since it was the first post I’d written about time management, I focused on the importance of taking teachers’ suggestions and/or requirements regarding schedules, calendars, and keeping track of assignments and tweaking them as needed to do what works for you, as well as on the importance of being flexible and creative about when, where, and how you might consider completing your work when real life intervenes and your best-laid plans are interrupted. In this post, I will build on the advice I gave then by providing examples of how you can apply time-management skills to your goals, in order to increase the chance that you will follow through on and see greater success with them.
As I stated in last year’s post, my best piece of advice on how to improve time management skills is to work on using your time more wisely. Not only can it be applied continuously and consistently and serve as the basis for applying other advice you are given and expectations your teachers have for you, it can also serve as a way for you to make sure you are following through on your goals. If your goals involve making improvements to assignment completion and/or test preparation in certain subjects, using your time more wisely means planning for the time it will take to put extra effort into assignments, ask for and receive any help you might need to do it, employ new and better study strategies, and start on them well enough in advance of a test for them to have the desired effect. Just as you put the goals themselves in writing, putting your plans to follow through in writing, whether as a part of a required assignment book or calendar, a separate list or sticky note you create for yourself, or any other method you choose that you find helpful, is an important step to take. Having reminders where you can see them, especially extra reminders of improvements to your study skills you are trying to make, encourages you to think about what you are doing, which will in turn motivate you to follow through with it.
Focusing on using your time more wisely is also a good thing to do if your goals involve becoming more organized. If you are trying to improve your ability to turn your assignments in on time, and/or your ability to make sure you have the materials you need to get your homework done and come to classes prepared, taking extra time to write or type assignments and/or reminders, thinking through what materials you need when you are at your locker or packing your backpack, having lists of needed materials posted where you can refer to them as you are gathering your things, and putting both assignments and supplies back where they belong each time you use them are all examples of ways that using time wisely relates to organizational skills. Though they require extra time, and may seem all but impossible to follow through on when you are in a rush, taking the time you need to do them in the moment will save time in the long run when being more prepared allows you to save time you once would have spent looking for missing assignments and materials, redoing missing work, and making alternative arrangements to complete assignments or prepare for tests when you don’t have everything you need to get the job done, and use it instead to complete new assignments and/or prepare for upcoming tests.
Whether your goals relate more to making improvements to your work, relate more to becoming more organized, or are a combination of both, expanding your definition of time management to accommodate the changes you are trying to make will greatly increase your chance to see positive results. As I’ve said before, time management is about a lot more than making a schedule and sticking to it, or using a calendar to keep track of important due dates. In addition to planning the time you need to complete academic tasks, planning the time you need to become and/or remain organized while you do so is not just an important part of improving your study skills, it is a necessary part as well. No matter how determined you are to follow through on the academic goals you’ve set, being disorganized has the potential to derail your plans. Even if you have not chosen a goal or goals related to becoming more organized, or you feel that organizational skills are a relative strength for you when compared to other study skills, making sure you do whatever you need to do to follow through on your goals may involve adding steps to your routine that increase your ability to be organized, so that you make sure you will have the time you need to see your plans through. No matter the type of goals you have set, it is important to evaluate what you do with your time, so you can build on what works, change what doesn’t, and be flexible and creative when the situation demands it. Taking the time to make your goals work for you is the best way to ensure that you will be able to work toward your goals, and the more able you are to apply time management to the goals you’ve set, the more success you will see with them.
Once you’ve set your goals for the new calendar year and/or the new grading period, following through on them will most likely involve finding new ways to manage your time, so you will be able to take the necessary steps to make the improvements to your study skills you wish to make. While it may be challenging at first to find the time to make improvements to your study and/or organizational skills, the extra steps you take now will pay off in the long run. The more organized you are about following through on your goals, the more successful you will be with them over time, and the more successful you are with your current goals, the more ready you will be to build on them when you set new goals in the future.