Time Management: Survival for College…and Life

As a high school counselor, I believed my job was to help prepare students for adult life, not just guiding them through “reading, writing, and arithmetic,” and emotional self-management. One of the skills I worked on a lot with my students was time management. I quickly noticed a pattern that during winter break, students would dump their backpacks in the closet or throw them under the bed and not touch them until the day/night before they returned to school. Many times, they would discover one or several things they should have worked on over the break, hence putting them behind and in catch up mode when they returned to school. This resulted in the last grading period of the semester and the resulting Fall Semester grades, often plummeting or students scraping by with a great amount of stress.

I would have my students pull out their calendar/agenda and we would look at the two weeks of vacation. I would have them plug in events/activities they knew they were going to participate in, and then I would have them block out study times during their break as well. Ultimately, students began to discover, as I predicted, they would get more accomplished while having a more enjoyable time-off. Upon returning to school, they felt in more control and not so panicked or pressured which ultimately resulted in better grades at the semester.

Part two of this was learning to transfer this knowledge and skill to college. The catch-22 of being a college student is that is sometimes feels as if at student has “so much free time.” [Quite the opposite, of course, despite maybe having a day without classes, or not starting class until 10 or 11, or being finished with classes by 1, e.g.] I would have a template of a weekly calendar to help explain the process. Using different colors helps things stand out and to be easily identifiable. The items to be color-coded on the calendar are the following: class time, labs, sleep-time, study-time [for every hour in class, two hours outside of class], free-time [dances, sports, social gatherings, clubs, chill-time]. Once students do this, they have this colorful map they can post in their dorms, so it is easily visible every day. Once again, more accomplished, more fun, less all-nighter cramming sessions, and better mental and physical health. My husband, an administrator when our daughters were in middle-school and high school, and I taught and encouraged our daughters to use this methodology as well as carry it with them to college. We never worried about their ability to be successful in school because they mastered the art of time management.

To me, this is part of the “art” of being a school counselor, which is why I named my book, The Art of Being a School Counselor. It’s learning to discover the strengths and vulnerabilities [over done strengths], of each of your students and developing a plan to help them transition to the best version of themselves. This way they can actualize their dreams into reality.

I wish you well as you journey through this discovery of how to enjoy each one of your students, as you guide and watch them grow and develop.

Check out Nancy’s book – The Art of Being a School Counselor here: https://outskirtspress.com/TheArtofBeingaSchoolCounselor

Link on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1977235964?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_ZWPK2HXJ8SQTSVWRRB0Q