01/ 23/ 2008
Welcome to a new year and a new semester of classes. If you're like many entrepreneurs, you've set your business goals for 2008. And if you're like many students, you went back to school and received syllabus after syllabus, and wondered how you'd ever write all of the papers, read all of the books and cram for all of the tests you're supposed to take over the next four months.
The good news is, you can grow your business and ace your classes, as long as you manage your time well. Here are five essential points to help you spend your time, not waste it.
1. Find your most successful way to delegate time
Success in time management comes largely from observing yourself and your surroundings. First, pay attention to your natural rhythms. Do you feel more alert and able to work in the morning or later in the evening? Also, notice when you have the best opportunities to get some work done. Are there times when your roommates are in class and you can accomplish the tasks that require more concentration or quiet (such as writing papers or returning client phone calls)? Getting into a semi-regular routine should help you make the most of your time.
2. Plan it out
No matter which hours turn out to be your most productive, there's one universal time management rule: be organized. If you haven't done so already, buy both a wall calendar and a weekly or even a daily planner. Write important tests, due dates, and business deadlines on your monthly calendar to help you keep track of important upcoming dates. Then use your desk planner to make up a weekly schedule.
As you block out the hours of the day, be aware of your preferences. You may have more stamina for working on your business than you do school work, for example, so don't save all your reading for one night a week. To ensure that your least favorite tasks still get finished, devote an hour or two to them every day. If one week is light on schoolwork, pencil in more business tasks and vice versa. Most professors hand out detailed schedules, so read ahead when you can. This may save you from stressful cramming sessions later in the semester.
3. Be realistic in what you plan to accomplish
Though you may have enough work to fill up twenty hours in your daily planner, you won't be able to get it all done. Overbooking will lead to disappointment when you finally have to call it quits for the day, and will leave even more to accomplish the next day.
Be aware how many hours of work a day you can accomplish, and try to honor that. While you may be forced sometimes to push past your limit, with good planning you won't have to do this on a regular basis. Also, schedule breaks to ensure that you don't fall behind, and that your mind will be fresh when you return to work.
4. Use social time wisely
For those weeks when you're facing deadlines at work and studying for finals, you may have to cut out some social activities. While you hate to miss the impromptu card party that your friends down the hall are hosting, you'll thank yourself the next day when you're still on top of your game.
This isn't to say you should do away with your social life completely. Maintaining your friendships and favorite activities are important ways of minimizing stress, so save room for downtime in your planner.
5. Make time to eat well, exercise and sleep
Along with social activities, these three are essential to keeping your health and sanity while maintaining a busy lifestyle. Take meal breaks--and no, a power bar doesn't count. Engaging in a type of exercise you enjoy will help you relieve stress and improve your stamina for work and school. And while the recommended eight hours of sleep may seem laughable to you at this point, try to get as much as you can on a regular basis.
College can be stressful enough when it is a person's only full-time responsibility. Add to this the challenge of operating your own business, and you may feel like your life is on permanent overdrive. While strong time management skills won't necessarily make your task load any lighter, they will at least show you that accomplishing all of them is possible.
