Time Management for College Students

Time Management for college students… it will literally determine success at this point.

I’m quitting at semester.

I’ll never forget standing in a hotel room in October with our son who’s a college freshman. He told me that he hated college and was going to quit at semester. A knife literally could have sliced through my heart. I knew that college was going to be hard, but his classes were going well and his grades were better than they were in high school. What the heck was happening?

After about 30 minutes of asking questions to delve into the problem we finally figured it out. He felt as if he had no time at all. It seemed as though every day was gone before it had gotten started and he was just exhausted.

Exhaustion had taken it’s toll

His is not an isolated incident. Every year, thousands of student athletes find themselves buried under the weight of practice, classes, study tables, friends, and no time left over to relax and rejuvenate. In our case, it was classes on top of 8 hours a week of study table (which for those who don’t know is a mandatory study hall for student athletes), 2 hours a day of practice and 2 hours 3 times a week of weight lifting/conditioning. Our son was burnt out and the only option he felt he had was to quit.

I immediately went into triage mode. Trying to figure out what I could do for him or tools that I could give him that would help make things easier. Freshman year during Covid is not the most accurate experience of what college life is supposed to be… so on top of it all, he was lonely because of the restrictions put on students by the university to control the pandemic.

Well, I obviously couldn’t do anything about regulations and restrictions. Cutting practice times and study table expectations also wasn’t an option. The only thing left was to dissect each day and see if I could help him spend his time better so that he had more time to relax.

Since there wasn’t a course titled Time Management for College Students, we did it ourselves. We started by making a chart with seven columns (he literally had something every single day… including a class on Sunday!). Then I had him give me his schedule each day. When he told us how he was spending his time, it was no wonder why he was exhausted. He was literally skipping food to try and squeeze in study tables!

He was skipping meals to make study tables!

I made another chart and put in all of the things we couldn’t control (basically class and practice). Then we put in meals. We had to make him realize that keeping up his energy was a priority. Next we put in study table time. Finally we highlighted all of the empty space. We told him that space was his. He needed to take it to relax and recuperate. To spend time with his friends and do what he could to have a little bit of fun.

That entire exercise was so eye-opening to me because it made me realize that he really had no idea how to spend his time and because there was no direction, it just seemed to slide away and leave him with too much to do and too little time. Now, Time Blocking can go even farther by giving yourself specific tasks inside of each block that must get done. However, this was exactly what he needed. 

I’m happy to say that he packed his truck and went back to school after break. We are getting ready to look at his second semester schedule and time block his weeks BEFORE we end up with a young man on the verge of dropping out because he’s at his wits end and just needs a break!