Study Tips On Time Management

Successful Study Tips and Techniques for Children | Page 5 of 7

How to study more in less time?

Studying more in lesser time - this is something every student loves. However, not many are aware about the simple tips that can make learning a breeze.

Tip-1

• Mark the essentials or simply the topics and create a short list to avoid spending more time on unnecessary materials
• Start studying as soon as you sit on your desk and don’t drag the time
• Concentrate on core parts and get rid of all trivia

Tip-2

Know your capacity and plan accordingly. It is impossible to study half a book in a day! Whether it is a page or a chapter, you should master it! Remember a small task completed well is greater than a huge task done half!

• Collect all essential stationery items and materials to avoid wasting time in search of them.
• Split all huge assignments into smaller portions

Tip-3

• Stay away from sources that discourage you, even if it is your close friend.
• Discuss all your problems with your parent or teacher, whether it is related to curriculum or not. There is no better companion than your mom or dad.
• Give yourself a huge break every week during weekends.

The GOOD Student – More about social activities

The ‘Good student in the class’ isn’t a title you can acquire just by academic performance. If you want to earn all the name and fame as the good student in your class, you need to develop all-round development. It is not necessary to cut down on all other important social activities and  completely focus on your studies. It causes no harm in participating in non-curriculum and other social activities. Parents, encourage your child to be active and social, not just a mere book worm!

Time Management for kids

Whether your child is in KGs or doing the school final, time management is essential! Management of time will have a lot of positive effects on life. Allocation of time properly enables kids to complete their studies in time and enjoy other activities as well. For instance, the child need not forsake his/ her favourite show on TV just because of the homework that needs to be completed. Proper time management will allow the child to have the best of both worlds.

Learning time management helps children to easily segregate their time for studies and other activities.

Time Management Formula for Studies

Did you know how much time you actually require for each subject? You think it is not possible to  assess that. You actually can! It is simple. Make an assessment of the subjects you can handle easily and the subjects you find very difficult to handle.

Now, assign one hour to easy subjects, two hours for moderately easy subjects and three hours for a difficult one (based on hourly class in your school). For instance, if you find difficulty in science and you have 4 science classes in a week, you have to assign 4 X 3 hours per week for science.

Make it into a simple ratio:
1 : less than one hour for easy subjects
1 : 1 - 2 for average subjects
1 : 2 - 3 for difficult subjects

How to allocate time when you have shortage

Hope you remember you have calculated the number of hours you assign for studying in a week. Now, with above calculation to assign time for various subjects, calculate how much time you need in a week to study all subjects as per yesterday’s calculation.

If you have surplus time, congratulations! But, what should you do when you run short of hours to allocate for studies?

For instance, you may need 4 hours a day and almost nearer to 30 hours a week to study all the subjects. If you have assigned only 26 hours for study, what should you do?

You cannot reduce the number of hours of study of course; instead you could watch out for the time spent on various activities. Reduce the activity where you spend most of the time. For instance, play time or television time. Remember not to cut down the activity completely, just reduce it. You can also cut down and spare more time for studies from random activities every day.

A Perfect Time Schedule 

We have briefly looked into how much time we spend on each activity, including the study hours. Now, let us get an insight into the perfect time schedule.

Have you created a time schedule for your studies? Remember you can never follow a perfect time schedule.

Imagine you spend 1 hour a day for watching television, 1 hour a day to eat, 8 hours to sleep, and 4 hours a day to study, etc. Sometimes you may need more sleeping time, or you may go out with friends or family, or you may have some guests at home.

Also, if you allocate 2 hours to mathematics which is your tough subject, sometimes you cannot complete your studies within the allocated time always. So, don’t worry if you are not able to adhere to the schedules. Spare time from other activities like television, or you can even sleep an hour late after studying.

Learn to say NO

Learning to say NO is an art and it is very essential at many phases of life. It is very crucial in the life of children. There are many tempting elements that your child may come across. For instance, inviting friends, going out with friends for no valid reason or watching television repeatedly, etc which can be easily avoided.

When somebody calls you to play, you should say NO (if you are forced to join the friends in your study time).

Even parents should follow this to encourage regular and routine study habits.

Learn to Prioritize

Prioritizing is an important aspect of time management. We learned giving importance and sparing more time to difficult subjects. Similarly, you must prioritize important activities to complete first. For instance, if you have a class test in science subject, you cannot spend more time on studying other subjects. Prioritizing makes things easier.

Another example: If you have to submit an interesting science project with a deadline of two weeks, you cannot rush it up at the last moment.

How to prioritize? Use this Priority table for all aspects, not just for studies.

• Very important and Very Urgent
• Not important but very urgent
• Very important but not urgent
• Not important and not urgent

Mark the activities into these four categories.

When you fail to do the tasks when they are in the 4th and 3rd stages, you will be forced to fulfill them when they are in the first and second stages.

For instance, you have 10 days’ time to prepare for the science exhibition, but haven’t prepared a bit for 8 days! It would have been in 4th stage when it was announced and when you do not work on it from day one, you would push it into first stage!

Multi-tasking

Doing many activities simultaneously is Multi-tasking. This is definitely not for children, although it saves considerable amount of time! In fact you cannot call it multi tasking, rather doing multiple activities.

Examples: Watching television while doing homework, playing while eating, listening to music while studying etc. Children are unable to concentrate on multiple activities and hence, fail to perfect the task, which also takes more time to complete than otherwise.

Personalized Schedules

Not all kids are same in the world, even siblings, even if they are twins. Each one has got their own strengths and weaknesses. If you have two children at home, you cannot create a single schedule to manage time. However, there can be similarities. For instance, time allocation and management for having food, play time, entertainment, etc can be similar. One child may excel in one subject and other may not in the same subject. Some may have the habit of night study (night owls), and some are morning bees! Personalized schedules are quite essential for effective time management

Conclusion to Time Management Tips

A schedule to manage time efficiently is half the way to success. You cannot expect yourself to perfectly adhere to the schedules. In fact, practice makes one perfect. This habit makes you successful in your life in all aspects, even beyond academics. However, you have to be true to your schedules. By creating reasonable and achievable schedules and by sticking to them, you are on your way to sure success.