Meghan Duerst

December 10^th, 2008

Planning your Time

 

                                  

Everyone who attends Gavilan College wonders, "How am I going to get through to the end?"  We all tend to get overwhelmed with all that has to be done within our day to day lives. Between work and school we must find time to balance study time, home work and time spent with family and friends. Time management plays a huge role in all aspects of getting things done on time and succeeding.  One way of managing our time is getting a planner.

    

According to an article by Eugenia Gerdes, "Poor performance often is caused by a student’s inability to structure time rather than lack of ability to cope with the subject matter." In other words this means that bad grades usually reflects how well we manage our time rather than understanding what needs to be done. As students we all must prioritize our valuable time and not procrastinate. If we don't apply these abilities we will suffer the consequences of failing. Students must learn to focus on organization, by doing more in less time.

 

When I attended high school, I got in this bad habit of putting off homework assignments because of family get-togethers, going out with friends, working or just resting, simply because I was exhausted from school and work all day. As my first year experience in college I found it very hard to manage my time.  Now that I have bought myself a planner, I have developed organizing techniques. I’ve used my planner which has helped me more focused and organized day to day. I have scheduled each day as to what to do at certain times. It has helped a great deal for me and it has kept me driven and motivated to get things done.

 

Dorthy Hoerr, in her book "A Student's Guide to Succeeding in Community College," says, "While there will certainly be hard days no matter what you do, balancing work, home, and school is a juggling act that you can master." This statement is true to us all in many ways. It takes a lot of effort and commitment to get through out college. By using some sort of organizing tool such as: notepads, calendars, or planners it will make life much easier and stress free in some cases. I can't say that I’ve had a lot of experience in managing my time to the fullest. But I am learning and trying every day. Little by little I am learning how to adapt my managing skills through out each day and getting closer to success. Without my planner I would have probably still be going down the path I was going down in high school.

 

So far since I've started at Gavilan I’ve got nothing but A's and B's. Managing time truly does work, it’s just up to the student to take the initiative and get the job done.