insert_linkEffective Revision Techniques Are Not Enough
Poor people value money. Successful people value time.
Time management is important for students because you cannot have academic and career success without investing your time. What’s more, merely putting in the time will not suffice—you must learn to manage your time wisely.
But why? The immense importance of time management for students makes it an essential skill for any ambitious student.
Despite this, schools rarely ever provide solid and sane advice with regards to time management. Rubbish!
All they say is:
“Create a revision timetable and you’ll be fine!”
“Spend two hours each night revising”
“Motivate yourself—revise for twenty minutes then take a ten-minute break”
Oh, and then you’ll have to somehow find a way to factor in homework. Not to mention, the advice you’ve been given in the educational system is—most likely—vague and ambiguous.
You’re better than this.
As a result of following all of the wrong advice, you might just end up as an academic robot.
Not only is this so impractical that it will destroy you, but academia is not everything; there’s more to life than good grades and being trapped in dull 9-to-5 jobs. (We’ll speak more about this later.)
Also learn: How to Schedule Your Life with Online Calendars? (Kill Procrastination)
insert_linkTime Is Your Most Valuable Asset—But It’s Finite
Poor people value money, meanwhile, successful people value time.
If you’re a determined student, you might have experimented with various revision techniques. In fact, you might be staring at your computer screen right now, exclaiming:
“I am using the most effective revision methods to date, I’ll have you know!”
That’s great—having a solid method for absorbing information is essential in order to secure your desired grades. Although, if it’s impossible to find adequate time to implement your strategy, what’s the use?
Equally, how can you spend less time revising and more time doing what really matters in life?
The importance of time management for students lies in the above question. That is to say, students can reap the benefits of time management to bring success in all areas of their life. Not just academia.
Furthermore, you don’t have a lot of time to manage—but a lot to do. To illustrate, there are:
- 24 hours in a day
- 168 hours in a week
- 8,760 hours in a year
Also, this is before we deduct time for sleeping, eating, resting etc. Time is evidently finite.
Thus, time management is important for students who are locked into committing however many hours to compulsory education per week.
You only have so much time until you have to find a job. Although, you could choose to spend your time wisely now hence—potentially—never depend on a job in your life.
Recommended read: How to Stop Wasting Time Online: My Proven 5 Step Strategy
insert_linkTime Management Definition for Students
Every ambitious student needs to know how to manage their scarce time resources effectively. Before delving deeper into this article, I have defined time management below. Whether you’re a secondary (“high”) school, university, or college student, this applies to you:
Effective time management is the act of planning as well as using one’s time productively both inside and outside of school learning hours. It is also the act of wasting as little time as possible.
Productive use of one’s time consists of engaging in activities that align with their values and purpose and contribute to their goals.
Furthermore, time management is all about how to distribute your attention and prioritise tasks.
Often, I associate success with entrepreneurship, since it seems to be the way to gain freedom in life. However, building a business is hard.
One of the benefits of time management is that it makes it easier to build a successful business. Entrepreneurship is for ambitious people—thus I implore you to start working towards it now. Thanks to the Internet, this is easier than ever before, especially when you have time management on your side.
On the other hand, even if you never enter entrepreneurship, extraordinary productivity and work output will distinguish you from the rest.
insert_linkYour Teachers Don’t Revise—And They (Probably) Aren’t “Successful”
Let’s accept reality: even exceptionally impressive grades are not going to unlock massive success. On the contrary, there is a whole host of factors that contribute to real success in life.
Moreover, assuming that stellar academic success did contribute to someone’s success, it would merely have contributed a small amount.
Prior to discussing what skills are necessary for success, let us first define success:
- Success is not relying on a high paying job until retirement at 65
- Success is when you are financially independent doing whatever makes you happy
- In other words, when you’re not obligated to work a day in your life
- Successful people make a huge difference in society—ideally for the better
If you’re reading this, I’m assuming you are ambitious—so you want real success. Is academia the way you’re going to get there?
While my intent is not to insult teachers and professors, I wouldn’t consider most of them “successful”. However, this isn’t necessarily bad, since most members of the middle-class are perfectly content to live a mediocre life.
Having said that, perhaps academia is the way forward for where you want to be in life.
insert_linkDo Not Listen to Your Teachers—Listen to Elon Musk Instead
If you’re here, your goal should be to exceed your tutors. Do they know how to revise and manage their time effectively? Unlikely.
Even though they may be productive enough to get their job done, they won’t be striving for perfection. Unless, of course, they possess a burning desire to achieve massive success.
Also, did they have the ideal school life you want? I know they (mostly) want the best for you, but they can’t give you that if they don’t have what you desire!
Therefore, you are likely not going to find the best time management tips and strategies from them. (Nonetheless, it does no harm to keep your ears open for new ideas.)
Conversely, you must seek to emulate successful people alongside their productivity techniques; only vastly successful people can truly comprehend the heavy benefits of time management.
Example of a successful person: Future of the Space Industry: Why Should You Be Excited?
insert_linkWe Live in a Knowledge Economy
“The single most powerful asset we all have is our mind.”
Robert T. Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad
This is a world where intellectual capital is becoming increasingly more valuable; especially with the growth of the Internet, knowledge, ideas, and information is where the money is at.
Accordingly, productivity is critical in order to thrive in a knowledge-based economy. Not only do you have to learn, but you have to learn fast. Effective knowledge retention and comprehension are equally vital, too.
So, speed is key: if you can outpace your competitors in terms of sheer volume of quality work, you’re destined for success.
Once again, effective time management is important for you to both:
- do more work than the majority of the population
- ensure that the work you do actually matters
For instance, let’s take programming as an example. Alice can manage her time effectively, so she only needs to spend 4 hours per day for a month creating an app. On the other hand, Bob spends 10 hours per day programming the very same app.
Who do you think has the potential to be more successful?
Boasting an abundance of extra time, Alice is free to invest her time in other profitable activities as well. Learning time management in our modern age enables you to be like Alice—appear superhuman to the mediocre.
insert_linkTime Management Constitutes Efficient Learning
Next, let us relate this to the life of a student. If you want to pass those exams, you need to be able to learn efficiently.
In other words, don’t spend excessive hours learning an infinitesimal amount; otherwise, you’ll never have the time (or willpower) to learn it all.
By contrast, an effective learning strategy is clear, sustainable, and efficient.
Managing your time is important to ensure that you’re happy to learn. Admittedly, you might not wake up in the morning with the immutable desire to revise what the Plains Indians had for breakfast. Albeit the mere willingness to do so will suffice.
Efficiency is the key to happy learning.
For example, would you rather spend one hour or two hours each day revising? I don’t know about you, but I would rather spend as little time on schoolwork whilst achieving superior grades.
insert_linkBalance Good Grades with a Fun Life
Another reason why time management is important for students is to promote a diverse, fun life. I certainly do not want to spend all of my free time studying, and neither do you.
Paradoxically, by employing certain productivity techniques, we can reduce study time without reducing academic performance. Why is this? It’s because humans aren’t designed to work ceaselessly for days on end.
Conversely, we can selectively incorporate breaks into our lives and work when we’re the most focused.
The book Deep Work by Cal Newport highlights the importance of giving full concentration to a task for a limited time. By the same token, the Pomodoro technique is founded on the idea that 5-minutes breaks ever half-hour boost the intensity (hence efficiency) of the work.
And that is the primary benefit of time management for you—optimising for work intensity rather than quantity so you can free up time to do more of what matters. The more intense your work, the more work you produce.
Note, too, that breaks (especially physical movement) are paramount for mental recovery. Thus, not working is the secret to working hard sustainably.
That being said, it would only be wise to ensure that you relax productively. To exemplify, you could go for a run or read a useful book.
Become a fact machine: My 3 Miracle Secrets to Absorb Knowledge [Super Quickly!]
insert_linkFind Overall Life Satisfaction, Happiness and Fulfilment Through Productivity
Upon hearing how I schedule my life, I’ve had (unproductive) people say to me silly things such as:
“You’ve got to enjoy your life”
“You need time to relax”
Funnily enough, as I read more, I become increasingly aware of the sheer ignorance behind these statements. To clarify, these people aren’t successful, nor do they know the importance of time management in anyone’s life.
So, is it true—does rigidly planning your life for maximum work output take the joy out of life?
Absolutely not!
In fact, the times when I am the happiest and most fulfilled are the times following bountiful productivity. Knowing that I have used my time wisely in a day brings me unique satisfaction—and it can’t be found elsewhere.
Therefore, I do not teach time management to students to promote miserable, robotic lives. Rather, I want you to realise how time management is important for a special kind of fulfilling life.
After all, some people can’t comprehend that I, in fact, do schedule time to relax and rest. As a matter of fact, allocating time to rest is exceedingly important, especially for students.
insert_linkConclusion: Is Time Management Important for Students?
When it allows you to say, “relaxing is a productive use of my time”, there’s no doubt that time management is important for students.
As we’ve learned, it is the key for a happy, fulfilling and rewarding life. Not to mention, spending time wisely is crucial for you to transmute your ambition into a massive success.
This is because effective time management—paradoxically—enables you to do more work in less time.
As such, it is important to schedule time to relax, preferably in a way that isn’t a complete waste of time.
In addition, even if you haven’t come around to the idea of entrepreneurship (yet), it is still important to manage your time; after all, time management skills are very much values in the workplace.
Therefore, time management isn’t a skill for academic success—it’s a skill for life; your career success depends on it.
Now, are you ready to take responsibility for your life?
Are you ready to live a more meaningful, fulfilling, and productive life?
Do you want to exceed the competition and succeed?
If so, stick around as a member of the Cryptic Butter community where I’ll show you how to excel in life: I’ll release a weekly article teaching you, from my experience, effective time management strategies that work for students.
Kickstart your journey now: How to Save Your Time: The Most Powerful Planning Routine
