How to Manage Time for Daily Study

Time management in school is a monumental task, but it’s not an impossible one. Allocating time in your schedule for classes, social life, sleep, work, and extracurricular activities is an expert balancing act — and it’s possible to squeeze in time for studying too. Get shining grades by using these strategies to never fret about finding time to study ever again.

Make Time

It’s time to realize the truth — it’s not that you don’t have time to study, it’s that you don’t make the time. Take a moment to reflect on times you’ve said to someone you didn’t have enough time to complete a task — every task you didn’t finish was something you didn’t want to accomplish. Instead, the time you should’ve spent on homework was scrolling on TikTok or attending an intramural sports game.

You had the time but categorized other activities as a higher priority when studying should’ve been in the limelight.

Energy-demanding, high-friction tasks like studying are rooted in resistance. Students don’t want to study for several reasons, including but not limited to the following:

• Fear of failure
• Peer pressure
• Boredom or lack of passion
• Trouble concentrating
• Lack of clarity on the subject

Somehow, all these excuses manifest as “I didn’t have time.” Review the actual cause behind your studying resistance and overcome it instead of resorting to deflection for a more sparkling report card.

Be Honest, Yet Flexible

Learning to say no could be one of the most impactful assets in your school backpack. Especially in college, it’s difficult to ignore the pressure of campus activities like attending football games or going to a friend of a friend’s conference presentation. It’s vital to be choosy in what obligations you accept that will monopolize your time. 

Time-investing obligations can have multiple appearances. They could resemble helping a friend move to their new dorm during midterms, or choosing to take 18 hours instead of 15 for the fall semester — one-time and recurring. Maybe you won’t have time to attend one party or club meeting out of the year, but at least you didn’t have to pull an all-nighter to write the essay or prepare flashcards for a test.

You can decide what to say no to by being honest about how long assignments actually take. You may believe the short essay will take two hours when it could take five. Being genuine about your time doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice other social perks of schooling. Flexibility is just as important as practicality in living a balanced school life that makes time for leisure and study. 

Design Environments

Environment design is one of the most pleasing ways to discover how to manage time for daily study. Curating your environment can take various forms, from how your study desk looks to the atmosphere at a specific location. Here are guiding questions that can help you uncover how an ideal study spot looks to you:

• Noise: Do you work better with or without, or is it distracting? Dig deeper to ask what kinds of noise are the most productive and hindering your productivity, such as white noise and music with lyrics.

• Visual pollution: Does a desk cluttered with pencils and books cause you to stress? Consider keeping a tidy studying space to promote mental clarity.

• Familiarity: Do you work better in familiar environments or does that cause stagnation? Discover if you work best in the comfort of your bedroom desk or prefer to go out to dedicated spaces like libraries or coffee shops.

• Body doubling: Do you work better alone or does being surrounded by other productive people inspire you? You can supplement your energy with study groups for accountability — this scratches the social itch while prioritizing studying.

Having the ideal environment for learning will make your mind more inclined to shift into studying mode. Every time you study, notice how your senses react and when you feel you had an excellent studying session. Was the room well-lit and bustling with other students using technology? Did the house have a comforting smell of lavender that kept you calm during your most challenging subjects?

It may take time to find what environments work best for you, but all you need to know is everything is adjustable so you can discover how to manage time for daily study in the perfect spot.

How to Manage Time for Daily Study, No Matter What

Being a student means wrestling between time-consuming obligations, but there is always time to study — you just have to look for it and block it in your calendar. Managing study time can be as complex or simple as you make it, but the effort will show in your grades regardless of the exertion required to make it worth it.