Why Time Management Skills Are Critical for the Success of Adult Students

Adult students bring real world experience and hard-won wisdom to their coursework. They also face a barrage of competing obligations. As an adult student, you may juggle workplace demands, parenting, caring for an aging parent, errands, cleaning, pet care, and more—all in a single day. Factor school into the mix, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. A family vacation or even 15 minutes of self-care might seem like a distant fantasy. 

A return to school offers hope for a brighter tomorrow, but it doesn’t have to throw today into chaos. Time management skills help you make the most of each precious hour. You’ll regain a sense of control over your day, have more time for fun and pleasure, and carve out more time with your family. 

Why You Need to Better Manage Your Time 

People are not machines preprogrammed to be as efficient as possible. This means that no matter how diligent you are, you could probably find another hour or two in each day with a little strategizing. As you transition back to school, time management skills are a key ingredient in the recipe for success. Gaining better control over your schedule means more control over your life and increased opportunities to: 

• Be with your family. Returning to school usually means missing events with the people you love. With excellent organization and planning, you may give up less time than you expect. 
• Practice self-care. Self-care is more than just a popular buzzword. Everyone needs rest, exercise, and a chance to do the things they love. Less procrastination and more efficient work means you can tend to your own needs without missing out on work projects, family events, or beloved hobbies. 
• Do better in school. Plan your life so you can have a chance to double-check your work, to heavily edit your papers, and to seek extra help when you need it. Put your tuition money to good use by learning as much as you can, and perform at your very best. 
• Enjoy school more. While you’re working toward a brighter future, your life today matters too. Free up space in your calendar and your to-do list so you can enjoy family vacations, holidays, and the occasional nap free of guilt. Investing in a bit of fun will ultimately help you cope with the day-to-day grind a little easier. 

How to Identify Your Biggest Time-Wasters 

An hour can feel like a fleeting second when you’re doing something you love. Or it can feel like an eternity when you’re waiting in a doctor’s office or hoping to get a call back from a job interviewer. Regardless of where you are or what you’re doing, an hour is an hour, and it’s important to make each moment count. 

You can’t increase the length of your day. But you can feel like you have more time by using your time more efficiently. Time management skills are similar to money management skills. They don’t work magic, though it can certainly feel otherwise. 

As a first step, commit to budgeting your time just like you budget your money. That means identifying your biggest time-wasters. For one week, try simply observing how you spend each day. Keep a log, or jot it down in your calendar. You’ll probably find that you waste more time when you’re bored, stressed, or distracted. You may also identify a few recurring themes. Just as frequent takeout and luxury coffee can slowly erode your savings, 15 minutes here and there on social media can quickly add up to lost time. Once you know where you're wasting the most time, you can start reining in these time thieves. 

5 Time Management Skills to Master Now 

Once you know how you’re spending each hour in a day—and where you’re wasting them—you can begin adopting new habits that add time where it once felt like there was none. These five time management skills will help you regain a sense of control and make the chaos of a return to school feel just a bit more bearable. 

Put it all in one place 

To more effectively reach your goals, you must first know what you are trying to accomplish. Everything should be in one accessible location so you can easily skim your calendar, review what’s on the agenda, look at long-term plans, and assess which next step is most important. 

For most people, this means some sort of planning system. Paper planners, notebooks, and apps can all work well. The one you choose to use varies with your scheduling demands, thinking style, and more. Here’s how to identify the right fit:

• Make sure it’s something you can take with you everywhere. A giant filing system with folders for every deadline is impractical. 
• Select something that’s easy to update. If your calendar system requires clicking through four screens and allows no customization, it’s not a good choice. 
• Choose something you want to use. Some people opt for attractive paper planners because these planners make them enjoy getting organized. 

Use time management apps 

No one-size-fits-all approach can help every student better manage a precarious schedule. The right time management apps, however, can help you address common pitfalls and regain control over your life. Here are some of the best: 

• Todoist takes the traditional to-do list a step further, allowing you to assign action items to various projects. This makes it easier to break every goal into manageable chunks. 
• If you’ve ever wondered why that quick task ended up taking three hours or what exactly happens to all the time you lose, RescueTime can help. It creates reports on exactly how you spend your day so you can make better use of every moment. 
• Remember the Milk works great for people who use many devices and programs, because it’s compatible with most systems. Track all your goals and projects in one place. 
• Turn all of your daydreaming into productive time with MindNode. This app helps you track your thoughts and better connect various ideas, making it a great option when you’re brainstorming for a paper or project. 
• Focus Booster uses the popular Pomodoro technique to improve motivation and help you better focus on daily tasks. You can even track how work tasks correlate with your budget and how other daily tasks get you closer to long-term achievements. 

Spend some time experimenting with different apps, as well as other strategies, such as traditional paper planning. You may find that the right combination of time management strategies melts away your stress and revs up your efficiency. 

Break tasks into smaller chunks and actionable steps 

Lofty goals, like graduating from college or getting a six-figure salary, can keep you inspired. As a daily time management tool, however, they’re totally useless. Indeed, they can even be paralyzing because getting from here to there may feel impossible. 

Break every goal into smaller chunks. Each of these chunks should include a list of actionable steps. Rather than put “Get an A on my test” in your goals list, itemize the specific steps you need to take to achieve that goal: study for x hours, meet with your professor, master a specific difficult concept, etc. 

For some adult students, it’s helpful to set semester, monthly, and weekly goals—then to translate these goals into smaller daily tasks that they incorporate into each day’s schedule. 

Multitask in the right way

If you’re like most people, you probably think you’re a great multitasker. The truth is that multitasking usually wastes more time than it saves and can erode performance on every task. You can’t do two tasks at once and do them well. What you can do is take advantage of forced downtime and boredom to get more done. Take your work and your schedule with you everywhere you go so that you can take advantage of sudden gifts of time. Moments that once felt boring are actually a great opportunity to read a few pages, respond to emails, or outline a paper. 

Take advantage of: 

• Time spent waiting in doctors’ and dentists’ offices 
• Long lines at the airport or DMV 
• Showing up early to meetings 

If you have a long commute to and from work, try listening to e-books relevant to your coursework or re-listening to audio files of lectures. For more ideas, check out this article on car learning that can maximize your time spent driving.

Monitor results 

You wouldn’t stick to a diet that didn’t offer clear health benefits. The same attitude is key to effective time management. The first strategy you use might not work. You might not have enough information about how you spend your time. Or you might simply be trying to accomplish too much with too little time. 

It’s important to re-evaluate your time management skills on a regular basis. When you first try a new technique,, you may need to assess results weekly. As you settle into a comfortable routine, use the end of each semester or course as a chance to weigh what worked, what didn’t, and what you need to do differently when you start again. 

How the Right Program Helps Adult Students Make the Most of Their Time

Your life is busy enough. Don’t waste time fighting traffic, searching for parking, and dashing to class. Online programs ensure that adult students can pursue an exceptional education on their own time and schedule. 

Accelerated programs allow you to dive deeply into the material while requiring only a single weekly class. This empowers students to focus on a single course at a time, making it easier to manage the myriad demands of work, school, and life. 

The right school is one that caters directly to your goals. An accessible education is not enough; you need to choose a path that gets results. Don’t waste time on a degree that’s not right for you or on classroom work that doesn’t sharpen the skills you need for a rewarding career. At SNU, we specialize in helping adults transform the life they have into the life of their dreams. We believe in you and the power of your ambition. Let us show you how our adult education programs are reshaping students’ lives and making a difference in the world. Contact us to learn more.