Say No To: ‘Let This Semester Go; I Will Study from the Next’, MANAGE YOUR 24 HOURS SKILLFULLY.

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”
                                                                                                      ―Michael Altshuler

We are familiar with a phrase “time is precious”, right from our childhood days. Children are taught the value of time in many ways. Still, the most struggling part of a day is to finish all the scheduled work on time. For students, this happens every day: procrastination for work occurs every day, every moment! They won’t get tired of procrastination. Rather gets a pleasure in accumulating tasks and trying to finish them all at the eleventh hour. Result?? All messy assignments, homework is undone, poor performance in exams.

Quite a while in teaching, watched students from close. Real bad habits are hampering their career. The first rule of career building is “be disciplined”. More precisely-“be disciplined with time management”.

At the beginning of every semester, students start with high expectations of doing well. Energised with excitations of new syllabus, new learnings of new subjects, new books, and notepads- the new hope of achieving zeniths of success. Days passes, slowly the initial enthusiasm starts dropping down and they start thinking ‘Let this semester go, I will study in next semester’. End of semester arrives so fast, they realise the failure of managing time well!!

Few Tips for students to manage time effectively:

• At the beginning of semester prepare your own timetable/planner. You can get a printed planner from market or can prepare on your own. The planner should have all weekdays mentioned including Sundays and corresponding dates. It should have the time blocks when you are at home. Mention First date and last date of semester.
• Sit quietly to fill that planner. Include college time and do not add much task during college hour as you will be busy in attending classes.
• In case you have time gap/ long break during class hour you can plan for that time period. You can write journals, have snacks, and sit in library to collect some important points or surf through net to collect study materials.
• If you are good in any extracurricular activities then plan sometime for it. Just keep yourself informed about the events in college and plan accordingly. But mention it in your planner.
• When you are in classroom, try to understand the concepts. In case you have doubts, get it clarified immediately from your teacher. If you are shy enough to ask a question in class, try to overcome it. If not attentive in class, you lose one precious hour and subsequently many hour. Gross waste of time is being inattentive in classroom.
• While studying at home try to be focussed with your work. Get engrossed, go with the flow of learning. Switch off all distractions. Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, SMS or anything of that sort. One hour of engrossed study gives immense pleasure, satisfaction and boosts the confidence. Don’t believe me? Try it and give yourself a thumbs up.
• Planning for every hour matters. Before starting of your semester classes, plan what to do during every week of semester. Things may change. Unforeseen events may happen. Let it happen but come back on track as soon as possible.
• Do not spend time watching every programme on TV, hanging out with friends, indulge in gossips (most of the time gossips are fake news), avoid spending unlimited time in snacking in canteens, going for every movie released etc. You know how you waste your time and learn to avoid those practices. Be wise, act wise.
• Rather plan for watching a movie with family/ friends which carries a strong message. Watch out for reputed movie directors’ opinions/messages. Listen to music of your choice to feel relaxed or practice dance. Plan for every activities. This is important. Proper Time management plan helps you to enjoy your life too.
• Sometimes you may slip in following schedule, reschedule it immediately and complete the task. Do not procrastinate. Sometimes you may be loaded with assignment works and other out of college work too. Finish the tasks priority wise.
• Get yourself organised. Maintain separate folder for separate study material. For example, if you have four subjects-Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics then you should carry four different folders to keep the notes separately. You may use a Physics notebook, but if you are using sheets to note down extra points in library or from internet, keep them in Physics folder only. You may get some Xerox of notes from a friend, keep it in the definite folder. This habit saves lots of time.
• If you are ahead of your schedule, utilise the saved time in revising. Sundays can be utilised for revising and planning for next week’s to do’s.
• Your task of finishing a chapter/topic can be divided into three or four parts. Set up a timer of approximately thirty minutes for each part and try to finish it. Put a check mark after finishing each part. Can have a short break of not more than five minutes in between. In this way you can finish a chapter within two hours.
• Finishing the entire syllabus needs a realistic planning. Give adequate time to the topics which are difficult to understand and important examination point of view.

I know I am sounding “impossible”. But is anything impossible really? You may not succeed in following your own planner but give it a continuous try. You will succeed definitely. It’s all about how much willing you are in developing a good habit. Start from a young age, when you are in school. As you grow up and join college you are already adapted with a good habit, you are disciplined enough. After all you want a fabulous career and who doesn’t want it? Treat your college time as your job time. Treat your understanding of subject as urgent. As urgent as an employee treats his work. Failing in duty may brand him as ‘jobless’. Do it sincerely, otherwise you are fired. If you try hard then you may not fall behind. Develop a good habit- lead a good life.

“Habitual procrastinators will readily testify to all the lost opportunities, missed deadlines, failed relationships and even monetary losses incurred just because of one nasty habit of putting things off until it is often too late.”

………… Stephen Richards