How to plan your day as a student, top 6 ways

Top 6 ways to plan your day as a student

We all have those days that we wake up without a plan for the day at all. We get our breakfast and get out of the house to get ourselves productive. If you are one who works from home, you start off with those mandatory duties you have to do. You go through your day ensuring the most important tasks of your day are done. You try to be flexible and fix time here and there for those to-dos that you may have forgotten or those that arise out of nowhere. Your day seems to be going fine, yeah, it is.  

Then, there you are, on your bed, before dive into some good sleep, you remember that one thing you did not do. If you are a student, you remember of that one assignment a certain lecturer gave you three days ago. You check your deadline and it really sends chills down your spine. It should be submitted before midnight. It is eleven in the night and that is the time you start doing your research and if it was an essay to research and write, that is when hell breaks loose. For you are good at getting things done, you get on it right away. 

You do some research here and there and boom! You submit your assignment ten minutes to time. Great, isn’t it? You realize it is not as great as you think. You are very tired, probably almost catching a migraine headache because of the rush plus the body really wants to sleep. You fade off into sleep, and wake up the next day, with no plan. Here, we go through a list of useful tips as a student to help you plan your day and have it smooth. You get to submit your assignments on time plus getting a good time for your social life. Let us get started with top tips to help students plan their day. 

Here are a list the top six tips for you to plan your day as a student with some bonus tips. You can skip to the one you really want to know if you already have your favorite tips. But do not skip number four for it is the most important.  

1. Check you goals and the day’s duties
2. Prioritize your activities based on your short and long-term goals and give each a time frame
3. Choose a productivity tool
4. Follow through your plan, student friendly tips
5. Go through your day in the evening.
6. Reward yourself.

Check your goals and the day’s duties

Goal setting 

Arnold Schwarzenegger said that you may have world’s best ship or airplane but if captain doesn't know where to go then not reaching the destination! It is thus important for you to set goals so that when you are preparing for your day, you ask yourself if the day’s activities are leading you closer towards your goals. Goals are what will keep you as a student motivated in your endeavors. Goals help you to plan your day or week depending on your short-term goals or long-term goals.  

Goal setting as a student may involve several steps but it has got three most important steps that summarize all the others.  

• Get a bigger picture of what you want later in life, this is your goal made of goals as a whole.
• Split your long-term goal into smaller goals of up to six months, one month or weekly. This will help you to know which tasks to give priority and which ones to invest most of your time in.
• Get started in following your goals. Simple! After this, you can now start looking at a how you will spend single days as parts of a whole huge journey.Here is detailed information on goal setting.

Prioritize your activities based on your short and long-term goals and give each a time frame

Getting all your goals down on paper or anywhere you can remind yourself of them is not that of a big deal. Prioritizing them and knowing which actually matters the most than the other is what is a problem. Students in college aim to graduating with a good degree at the end of their school calendar. It is not a surprise to hear that some students are in school but acquiring that degree is not their ultimate goal in life. 

You as a student may be taking BSC in Mechanical Engineering but you are in love with photography. So, you start considering the thought of being one of the most successful photographers in your country. When it comes down to deciding what amount of time to invest between the two, you get yourself in a dilemma. First of all, it is preferable to prioritize your college studies over anything else. For college is expensive and if that money is not utilized well, you may end up with regrets. 

Figure out how you spend your day as a student. This includes classes, homework, other academic activities, personal & social and your free time. 

What to consider when prioritizing your daily tasks in your plan 

• Are these tasks leading you to your overall goal? In his book, The 33 Strategies of War, Robert Green talks about doing everything while asking yourself if it is leading you towards your goal, not whether it is right or wrong. He calls it the Grand Strategy. Come up with at least three tasks or approximately five top priorities.
• Check and see what needs to be done by today, this week or this month, which task will take longer to complete so you assign a little bit of more hours on it, which will take me a shorter time to finish, which will have dire consequences if not done. 
• Exactly when does a certain task need to be done? 
• Which tasks can you delegate to someone else? 

Be realistic to yourself. Say you are the student taking Mechanical Engineering but you have a passion in photography, you better put photography second after the career path you are following in college. This is not to mean that you give photography very limited time while Mechanical Engineering takes the lion’s share.

Choose your favorite productivity tool to lay out your plan of the day as a student 

There are two most important sets of productivity tools that you can use as a student when you have a plan to follow. These are paper and pen productivity tools and online tools brought about by technology.  Paper and pen productivity > is not that preferred as a good way for students tend to be a little bit messy and can easily lose them, thus online tools are great for your data is backed up and can be retrieved in case of any loss. These tools are here to ensure there is no task forgotten such as that assignment given by your lecturer three days ago.

These productivity tools help you to check those tasks already done, which ones you have cancelled and others give you suggestions if you are on the right track. These are apps such as  Todoist, Google Keep and many more. This will enable you to make the most of your time as a student in college. Here is a list of android apps that you can use, read more here > on desktop and other versions of the apps.

Examples of productivity for students 

• Todoist
• Rescue time
• Focus Keeper
• Toggl
• GoodSync
• Trello

Follow through your plan, student friendly tips

Be flexible, flexibility is great for you as a student for students are still young and are adventurous. Anything may pop up during the day that needs your attention. This is not to mean that you pay attention to trivial matters such as visiting that friend who invites you while you are busy working on your current project. You don’t have to stop what you are doing for such. But something may happen such a one of your lecturers calling for a make-up class, thus you have to be flexible and adjust your day accordingly. 

Delegate certain activities. You do not have to do everything yourself. In The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green,  law 7 states that Get Others to Do the Work for You, but Always Take the Credit. You do not have to do that which someone else can do. Let us say that you have to spend at least one hour to do laundry, you do not have to do that if you can get someone to do it for you so you pay the person and use that time you have bought to work on something else on your list.

Check yourself hourly. You can simply check on yourself after an hour or two to see if you are staying on course. Nobody is there to ensure you follow through this plan but your  discipline.

Establish your working hours and start with the most important three of your tasks in your plan of the day.  

Learn how to set boundaries with your friends, family and relatives. Sometimes you get used to that one friend who you can not ignore. You do not have to cut him/her off totally, but politely let them know that you have something going on and you can catch up later. Unless it somewhat an emergency. 

Go through you day in the evening 

It is best to have a routine of checking your day as a student each and every evening to see if you are sticking to your plan and if you are moving towards your goals. Spend at least ten minutes to check what you missed to do. This will help you in the following; 

• Should you readjust your plan?
• Get to know which tasks on your daily plan need to be added more time and which have to be given less time.
• Adjust deadlines to your own goals based on new activities that may rise
• Know which task to prioritize over the another the next day on your plan

Reward yourself

You deserve a good treat of yourself after being disciplined to follow your plan as a student for a week. It is all about yourself, you keep an eye on what you do and you still congratulate yourself. Do not worry if along the week, you did not fully follow your plan. Still, you have to reward yourself for the good trial. This will make you to be motivated the next time you are planning your day as a student and make you more disciplined to follow through, knowing in mind that there is a reward at the end of the week. Not forgetting that the grand reward is waiting for you when you will achieve your goals. 

You deserve some rest. Do not stuff your plan of the day with only responsibilities and duties. Give yourself some time off when you can just take a walk or take on your hobby. It does not have to be a hobby, anything to just refresh your mind. 

Conclusion 

Success in college, in your dreams and life as a whole is brought about by baby steps. Rome was not built in one day. Thus, every hour of your day counts when it comes to you hunting for success. Thus, these few simplified tips will help you greatly in your time as a student in college. Plan your day as a pro!