It’s Monday morning. You hear your alarm blaring through your odd dream about the octopi you learned about in biology class. The rusty pathways of your neural networks clear and you are once again reminded of a harsh truth—you failed to manage your time this weekend, so studying at 5 a.m. on Monday morning is your best chance at passing an exam.
According to teachers at the high school, time management is something that everyone struggles with at some point in their lives. From procrastination, anxiety and taking the first step in a big project to advice from a renowned European philosopher, these teachers will advise on how to handle the natural human flaw that is time management.
College counselor Lenny Libenzon has three strategies, some of which he has been using for 20 years, that he recommends for students struggling with time management.
“One is to keep a calendar where you enter all your deadlines and where your exams are, so you can start preparing for them ahead of time. The second advice is to break big tasks into small ones, so they look more manageable,” Libenzon said. “The third piece of advice is something that I learned from the book ‘Organization for Dummies’ by Eileen Roth, which is the best piece of advice I’ve ever heard: spend every Friday cleaning up your room, your desks and your workspace.”
Another tried and true strategy is jumping straight into a new task. According to Spanish and French teacher Andrew Kimball, procrastination is often caused by anxiety surrounding the idea of starting a bigger project.
“In a large project, taking the first step is often the hardest,” Kimball said. “So take that first step, and then once you realize you can do it and find some success and some confidence, it won’t seem as intimidating a task.”
Taking rigorous classes with big projects can teach students not only about the content of the course, but about managing their time, according to social studies teacher Mark Wheeler.
“I taught AP US [History] for a decade-plus, and I constantly had kids come back and say it was one of the most helpful classes they took in high school in regards to college, and it wasn’t because of the content,” Wheeler said. “The skills you learn in one [AP class] and the confidence that you can do and balance things is actually pretty worthwhile.”
Wheeler also said it is important to acknowledge that people work in different ways and that finding a way that works for you takes time.
“Procrastination is procrastination. Some people do it. Some people are quite orderly and methodical about how they work, and they punch a clock and they get it done,” Wheeler said. “Find the method that works for you, and embrace it. I found I’m way more productive in the early morning hours [and] the middle of the day than I ever was staying up all night, which is what I did in college—full of famous all-nighters, which only got me through a few semesters.”
Kimball said that for some students, having a tightly packed schedule can help manage one’s time as well.
“I’ve heard it said that for those kids who are typically heavily scheduled, when they lose that, and it’s not their sports season [for example], time becomes this huge gift and that is actually when time management becomes a challenge because they don’t have to account for every minute,” Kimball said.
Libenzon also said that if you don’t know how to manage time correctly, having more of it can make you feel like you have less time in a day. He said he personally struggled with this when he first started college, but turning to books by experts helped guide him in the right direction.
“When you get into college you have so much free time and stuff you have to do is self-directed,” Libenzon said. “You don’t necessarily have as many assignments. You do research, in addition to work, in addition to your classes.”
Even though we may not have control over the bigger decisions we have made, we can still change their outcome by controlling the little decisions made in our day-to-day lives regarding how we spend our time, said Wheeler.
“Taking an AP class is a choice. You’ve made a choice by late October when you’ve decided to stay in this class. Later, we can’t really talk about that choice anymore. It’s more, here’s the reality of what we have to get done. So try to think of what are the choices in your day you can make,” Wheeler said. “For example, I’m gonna get up early tomorrow morning and bust out that textbook chapter. Or this weekend, I’m not gonna go out on Saturday night with my friends.”
Wheeler said that sometimes it is helpful to just have someone to keep you accountable in doing your work. When his students are not too busy with extracurricular activities, he offers time for them to simply sit and take notes during office hours.
“I had a boss who used to say to teachers who are having a hard time getting stuff back or getting stuff graded, he’d be like ‘just come to me, sit in my office, come and grade in here to just get it done’,” Wheeler said. “So, I’ll offer time to kids.”
According to Libenzon, a little procrastination is not the end of the world. He said it is, in fact, important not to get too down when you do not adhere to the social standard of productivity, as procrastination can have some positive benefits.
“One of the European philosophers, Schopenhauer, wrote that procrastination is actually a catalyst for deep thought. Some of the best ideas come while you’re procrastinating,” Libenzon said. “So what I recommend is not looking at your procrastination as the worst thing in the world. We all procrastinate. Take it easy. Don’t be anxious about it. Just make sure at some point you go through your list of things to do and start doing them.”
