College Success (Essay Sample)

College SuccessYourFirstName YourLastNameUniversity title
 
 
 
Time Management
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Introduction
Time management can be explained as the process or act of exercising and planning conscious control of the amount of time that one spends on a specific activity to increase the level of efficiency, effectiveness or productivity (Daft & Marcic, 2013).  It is very important for one to develop effective time management strategies to balance the competing demands of time for leisure, studying, job hunting and for earning money. Time management skills are essential in many aspects of life, occasionally it may seem that there is no enough time to attend to everything that one needs. This may lead to an accumulation of stress especially to students on the final year who try to study intensively and at the same time apply for job and attend interviews or students revising during the examinations. By learning ways of managing our time effectively then we can adjust our patterns and routines of behavior to minimize any stress that is related to poor time management.
However over requires some other skills such as setting of clear and attainable goals, breaking the goals into smaller discreet steps, action planning and doing a review of the actions towards the achievement of the goals to enhance good time management. Making a clear priority of important and urgent activities and avoiding activities that are not important to the goals set. Setting of a clear priority where individual tasks are arranged and set of deadlines that is based on the importance rating of the activities (Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell, 2013). This can be done by making a consideration on the importance rating and the level of urgency. It is recommended that planning to be done on a daily, weekly monthly yearly or any other period that might be considered to be appropriate.
ABC analysis
This is a technique that can be used to categorize data into clusters that are named A, B and C using this criteria (Daft & Marcic, 2013). 
A- This group consists of tasks that are considered to be very important and urgent. Tasks in this group are to done before any other tasks.
B- This consists of important tasks but that are not urgent
C- In this group we have tasks that are considered to be neither important nor urgent. Tasks that are not important but urgent are also placed in this group.
For example, students may utilize one hour time in reviewing lecture notes, revising for exams, proofreading an assignment problems, jotting down essay plans. The student may also use medium time slots such as a three hour or two hours in writing notes from readings, editing or drafting an assignment, making detailed revision for examinations, making detailed reading for assignments and courses and lastly a student may use longer time slots, time more than three hours, to work out an assignment, doing research for assignment, doing revision for exams and making a comprehensive amount of reading (Whetten, 2005). 
It is clear that some weeks might be busier than others and so a student need to have a flexible plan to cater for unforese...