As November comes to an end, so does the first semester for many college and university students. If you’re in college you’re probably looking forward to the upcoming holidays although chances are you have to get through exams first.
I recall my first year of university and it was a difficult one. I found it hard to manage the workload and never realized that I didn’t have to do school work 24/7 which is essentially what I did during my first year.
It really wasn’t until midway through my second year that I started to figure it all out. For me, it was just a matter of prioritizing, trying to learn material and not memorize it, and realizing that I’d never have enough hours in the day to do everything. Instead I did the most important stuff first and whatever I had time to do next got done and if it didn’t get done it didn’t get done.
I started doing less work and taking part in more extracurricular activities. Actually the extra curricular stuff didn’t really start till year 3. I joined a martial arts group on campus and helped them actually run the club. I also joined a campus safety patrol that walked female students home at night. In my fourth year I continued to do these things and also started a few other extra curricular activities as well.
I found that the more I got out and kept busy, I better I did at school. By the time I got into business school, the workload was busy but was manageable because it was structured but also because I’d learned how to work more effectively.
If you’re in school and are having trouble getting everything done and wish you had another few hours every day, take a step back and figure out how to get your work done more effectively like I did. Do some of the easy work first to get it out of the way, don’t let others distract you, figure out what really, really needs to get done and do it first.
Every teacher or professor you have is going to tell you that their class is your most important one so you need to figure out yourself which one of them is telling the truth.
