The Proper Way to Manage Time in your Day as a Student
By Alexa Albert
Fall 2025
Do you ever feel like you don’t have enough time in a single day to get your assignments done while also working a job and going to school full time? Well, You are not alone! The most stressful part of the college is trying to find the time for everything. An article done by Transforming Education states that 60 percent of college students report feeling stressed every day, and that the stress levels among college students has increased by 30 percent in the past 3 decades.
What is Time Management?
Time management is the overall process of consciously planning and controlling time spent on specific tasks to increase how efficient you are. According to Coursera one the core parts of time management is motivating ourselves. The best thing to start with when trying to start good habits and break the bad ones, you need to be honest with yourself and your bad habits so are able to break them. At their core, time management methods are the basic skills of awareness and adaptation. Overall, that just means by being mindful of your tasks, and taking advantage of your free time, you can essentially complete what you need to get done.
Understanding the definition of time management is the first step in actually figuring out how to manage your time. Next, is figuring out how to prioritize what you have going on. Matthew Marjan is a counselor for the Dyson Wellness Center at North Central College, when asked about prioritization, he states that “control what you can control. when it comes to your job and your classes, those are set times that you have to be somewhere. You should take the time you have around those set times and block out sections of time to take care of your studying.” Matthew also talks about how important it is to hold yourself accountable and how to do that is to start small. If you start with a 60 min block of time to study for an exam first then to block out the rest of your day that way, you have a better chance of getting everything else you need to get accomplished.
Why Should you Manage your Time?
Why should you time manage? What can it help with? According an article for US News, they state that for most college students the top stressors include the aspect of paying for school, taking exams and finding internships. The demand for students is quite frankly extremely overwhelming when facing all different types of pressures. Time managing ideally is going to help with all of these difficult things than college students deal with day to day. But why is time management important? Well, the short answer is that it can lead to many healthy and balanced lifestyles. Per Coursera, this could include:
Reducing Stress
Increasing Energy
More Efficiently
Reducing Procrastination
Boosting Confidence
Prioritizing What’s Important
We talked about the why and what for time management but let’s talk about the how. How can you time manage as a college student? Well, there are three different things you have to consider: your school life, your personal life, and your work life. The first and probably the most important one being your school life. You are in college for one reason, to get a degree and to get a job in the future. So why wouldn’t you want to make it your number one priority? Obviously, being in college is stressful as stated above, and all you want to do is avoid it. That leads to procrastination. This is a very large part of the stress that comes from college, and it can all be avoided.
How Procrastination Can Affect Time Management
The first step to avoid procrastination is to limit your distractions. In the very digitalized world of social media and the constant checking on your phone for the next thing, it can cause you to get distracted and fall down the doomscroll rabbit hole. This leads to wasted time sitting on your phone when you are supposed to be completing an assignment. I know it’s a lot easier said than done, but there are apps like Forest, StayFocused, or Freedom that limit notifications, allowing you to stay focused on your original task. Angela Bannon, Student Success Coach for North Central College, she works hand in hand with students to help them succeed in college. When asked about ways to help procrastination she says “with everything being so accessible, it is learning to separate yourself from your phone, it is one thing to say it verses putting it into practice. Self-discipline will be your best friend.” For me personally, I set up timed focuses or do not disturb on my phone that travel across all of my devices during certain times. This helps limit the number of distractions that I come across. According to a study listed on the NLH, they state that time management was associated positively with self-control and study engagement, while negatively associated with the dependence of mobile phones. If there was self-control present, there was an increase in study engagement. Time management can directly predict study engagement through 3 indirect paths, them being self-control, mobile phone dependency and them together.
Working While in College, How Can That Affect You
Holding down a job in college is probably one of the most stressful things you can do as a college student. Wither it be a few hours a work or a full-time job, its extremely difficult. As someone who has a job since her senior year of high school, I have had to get very creative with my work and school balance. But if you don’t have to work while being in school, why would you? From an article on Study.com, they say that working during college can benefit you by building your resume. Gaining professional experience is something that all future employers look for as well as your education background. They want to know If you can take direction from another person as well as working in a team setting. While working in college can benefit you in your future, it can also hurt you more if you are. Coming from my personal experience, if you don’t take care of yourself, it will cause to fail in a specific area or all together. Sometimes you need to know when to take a step back and really think if you are giving yourself enough time.
Working while in college has become more and more common as the years go on. From the Academe Magazine, they have statistics from 2005- 2017 talking about the number of full time and part time students that are working anywhere from 10 hours to 35 hours. As time moves forward, the number of students working increases as well as the number of hours they are working. For part time students in 2017 the most work a minimum of 35 hours a week which equates out to a full-time job. And for the full-time students, in 2017, they tend to work between 20-34 hours a week, which is still a very large amount of time that full time students are working. In today’s world, there could be a number of reasons of reasons as to why you are working during college. The biggest and main reason to help pay school while being in it. according to the Academe Magazine, it states that as of second quarter of 2019 the student loan dept was exceeding 1.6 trillion dollars. college is very expensive, and it only keeps rising. So as prices rise, it is going to cause more and more students to work while being a student which in return will cause more stress on said students.
How to Have Personal Time in College
Now you are balancing your academic life of taking 12-18 credits per semester as well as working a job, how do you find the time to see your friends and family? It can feel nearly impossible to see everyone you want to just because you feel like you are drowning. “It is so important to set aside time to just go outside and socialize” states Matthew. As well as “it is just as important to set aside time to see your friends as it is to do for your homework. If you don’t ever take for yourself, it will hurt you just as much.” It is so important to take time away from your responsibilities and do something you want to do. According to an article done by Centennial College, they also talk about the negative effects of not going out and being social in college. They state that it can affect your mental health as well as your performance in school.
Being social in college can also be more than just helping you taking time away from your schoolwork, but also meeting people that could help you in the future. One of the greatest examples is through a connection have made since being on campus. Carson Busby is a Senior at North Central College, Majoring in Business Management. She has been working at her serving job the entire time while being at NCC. she has found ways that to work around both her work and school schedule to complete her academic work as well as spending time with her friends. She states “I use a google calendar app and my reminders app to help stay on track. They notify me throughout the day when something is coming up during that specific day.” She also talked about taking time at the beginning of each semester to put in every single important date that is given on the syllabus, so that in the future she can plan her work schedule around important due dates.
The Importance of Taking Time for Yourself
Caring about your mental health while being in college is extremely important. Taking the time away from your responsibilities and taking time for yourself can easily make or break your ability to accomplish things. In my interview with Matthew Marjan, he talks about how time management is important but part of it is making time for you. He states “there is a point where the brain just gets saturated. It’s like a sponge that can’t suck up anymore. You can’t do everything, and you just get overloaded. Making sure that you have to even just sit down and enjoy a show and going and doing fun things is so important.” From an article done by College Boxes, they also talk about the importance of physical activity and how it can be helpful for students that are feeling stressed and just need to a break from academic related things.
Caring about your mental health while being in college is extremely important. Taking the time away from your responsibilities and taking time for yourself can easily make or break your ability to accomplish things.
My Personal Schedule
As a full-time student, my schedule feels very daunting. I work 20-30 hours a week in a leadership role with a major retailer and I am a fully on-campus student who commutes 30 minutes a day to campus. Finding the time to do homework and also just time to take a breath can seem like a challenge. I have been able to create the best way to utilize my free time from the two things I prioritize most to be able to succeed throughout the semester. My MWF schedule is pretty light with just one class, and I work either right after class or about 4 hours after. I take advantage of the time before a shift to complete assignment that were either assigned that day or that are due the next day so once I get home at 11pm I can just relax and go to bed. If I work the morning, right after class, I take the time on my break to work on assignments and once I get off of my shift and go home, I work on assignments usually till about 12am to stay on pace.
Tuesday and Thursday are my more complicated days. I am on campus from 9:50am till 5:10pm. On Campus we have what we call Community Time where people can utilize the time to meet with their clubs and groups since no classes are scheduled during that time. For me, I use it get my work done. It’s about 2 hours of free, unbothered time where I can sit in the library and get as much work done as possible. I set up my work schedule so I cannot work on those specific days (sometimes I have to pick up a closing Tuesday night but not often) so I can use that time to work on assignments. Thursday night is different for me, I take that night to go and spend time with my friends (depending on due dates for assignments). It has become a normal Thursday night thing where all of my friends are free, and we get to decompress and spend time with each other. Weekends are a free for all to say the least. It is usually to finish up last minute assignments, working pretty long days and catch up on sleep for me. This type of schedule works for me the best, but it isn’t going to work for everyone! It is important to find what works best for you and make that your own schedule.
Helpful Tips For Time Management
I would say the most important part of time management is creating a schedule or just planning out your week. Using a calendar app on your phone or even a planner that you can physically write on is super helpful. Start by writing the tasks you need to get done immediately during that specific week, then adding other events/tasks (family/friend events, your job, classes, etc.) and find the free time you have and plan out everything else around it. when talking with Angela, she talked about the importance of planning out your days at the start of the week. She states “take stock of everything you need to accomplish in your day. Learning the difference about what you want to do in a day versus what you need to do in a day and take a step back and look at the full picture, then move forward with what you need to get done. When I plan out my days, I start with the things I cannot control, that being my sleep schedule, I know for a fact I’m going to sleep a minimum eight hours a night. This also reduces stress since I am ensuring I am receiving a healthy amount of sleep. Then, I add in my work shifts, then whatever other personal things I have going on. I use the time I have left in that specific week, to plan around deadlines and figure out what assignments take the most time and effort. There, I plan out when I can work on them. Time management does take some practice to get accustomed to, but by physically taking time to plan your week is going to end up benefiting you in the long run.
Conclusion
Time management is one of the most important skills to learn while being in college. Learning what is the most important thing in your schedule, prioritize that, then go on to the next thing and continue going until you have no other things to worry about then you can execute your schedule It can seem intimidating at first, but it is one of those things that is going to benefit you in the long run once you get used to it.
Alexa Albert Is a Senior at North Central College, majoring in Marketing. She will be graduating in the spring of 2026 hoping to work in the Professional Sport World. She has managed to work a retail job all throughout college and worked her way up the ladder at her location and now manages her team. She has found that planning out her weeks in advanced to accomplish her responsibilities have been super helpful while working in college. When she is not working or in school, Alexa loves going to concerts all around the Midwest, or even across the country for her favorite bands.