Time Management Tips for MBC Students

Montana Bible College ACTS Director Mandi Foster shares her advice on one of the most challenging aspects of being a college student: time management. The Academic Culture Training for Students (ACTS) program is a vital resource for student success at MBC. Look for more advice in future blog posts!

We have all been there. You leave a lecture, walk through the library door, find an unoccupied table, and plop your backpack into the chair next to you. Taking a breath, you open your planner to view a list of unfinished tasks with deadlines looming ominously in the near future. Rubbing your temples, you close your eyes and think the thought that resonates with every college student who has walked the face of the earth:

Where do I even start?

Mandi Foster, here, ACTS Director and Writing Instructor at Montana Bible College. ACTS is an acronym for “Academic Culture Training for Students.” As the ACTS Director, I assist students with everything from studying for exams to taking them through the writing process for a research paper. If anyone resonates with the above paragraph, it’s me. As a person with a never-ending list of responsibilities to be completed, I know all too well the struggle of just sitting down and starting something. Especially when there are so many things to be done, you don’t even know what to start. The overwhelm is paralyzing and motivation-killing, making you even less productive.

As a teacher, I’ve always reassured my students that no matter the task, getting started is always the hardest part, so just start, and you can make it pretty later! However, here I take that a step further. Choosing what to start is the hardest part. Because you can’t even start something until you decide what to start. Do you see the dilemma? I know every college student reading this does. 

As someone who has completed three college degrees and one certificate and is now in the midst of a doctoral program, I’ve picked up some tricks and habits over the years to enable me to be successful. I’ve also learned a lot from one of my favorite books. 

When I was a freshman myself, I, of course, was required to complete a freshman orientation/success course. The book I purchased for the course was entitled College Success Guide. The book examines every academic problem a college student could possibly encounter and gives real-world, practical advice on how to combat these problems.

One of the biggest struggles students encounter is time management. 

So, the major dilemma…how do you decide what to work on first? How do you determine when to work on what?  These decisions should be made with consideration of multiple factors such as due dates and the simplicity (or lack thereof) of the project. What do I mean by this?

Imagine that out of the four classes my student is taking, they have:

• a two-page reflection due in three days,

• a 200-word discussion post due by the end of the week, 

• and a five-page research paper due in two weeks.

There are multiple factors to consider here, and this is where a calendar/planner comes in handy. We consider deadlines, the length of time to complete, and the worth of the assignment.

Week 6	Sun.	Mon. (You are Here!)	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.
WRIT 101							Readings completed
College Algebra				Homework due
PSYCH					2-page reflection
BIOLOGY							Discussion post due
Week 7	Sun.	Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.
WRIT 101
College Algebra				Homework due
PSYCH				Discussion post due
BIOLOGY							Readings completed
Week 8	Sun.	Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.
WRIT 101						5-page research paper due!
College Algebra				Homework due
PSYCH					2-page reflection
BIOLOGY			Experiment in class

When examining these three weeks of my student’s assignment schedule, obviously, the largest impending project is the five-page research paper for Writing 101. However, there are other assignments due long before the paper that should be considered first due to their timeliness. So, the student sitting down to study/work on Monday of week 6 is likely not going to jump right into drafting the research paper due in week 8 to complete it right then! 

Instead, they will realize they have an algebra assignment due on Wednesday (which they likely haven’t yet begun). Since that is due soonest, I would advise the student to work on it first. 

Next, they have a two-page reflection due on Thursday for Psychology and a 200-word discussion post due on Saturday for Biology. Now, here is where I would encourage the student to consider the length of the assignments. Typically, it is best to knock out the smaller assignments first, so they are out of the way, allowing the student to devote more  time and mental energy to the larger, higher-stakes assignments, such as papers and larger projects.

This is where the ability to distinguish the busy work from the major assignments is important, by considering the length and percentage of points they are worth. You wouldn’t spend hours of your week agonizing over a 200-word discussion post and not use that time for the five-page research paper! That would be crazy, especially since the discussion post is likely only worth 10 points and the research paper is worth 100 points or more. 

Therefore, in this case, I would encourage the student to knock out the 200-word discussion post next, followed by the two-page reflection for Psych. The student could use a spreadsheet listing information about the assignments, such as due date, grade weight, time commitment, difficulty level, etc., to help them quickly determine which assignment to begin working on. Example included below:

Course	Assignment	Due Date	Grade Weight	Time Needed to Complete
WRIT 101
COLLEGE ALGEBRA
PSYCH
BIOLOGY

For sure, the student should be able to complete the discussion post by at least Tuesday. Whether the student completes these two smaller assignments on Monday or in a few days, I would encourage them not to even begin thinking about the five-page paper until these two assignments are knocked out. If they need a couple of days to finish the two-page reflection, they now have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to complete it. 

After the two-page reflection is turned in, they now have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to begin the prewriting/drafting parts of the writing process for the five-page paper. Since the other little assignments are out of the way, they can now begin the research paper and solely focus on that. As the paper is due in two weeks, they will be able to really research and write at multiple points during their weekend without feeling rushed and stressed (which is when none of us do our best work).

Sometimes, the big projects aren’t the assignments students are stressed about. Sometimes, they admit to me that they are having trouble even keeping up with their readings and smaller homework assignments, such as reflections, discussion boards, or reading responses. When it comes to the smaller weighted assignments like these, the students have the temptation to procrastinate more, overlook them, or never even turn them in. I highly encourage my students to treat these assignments just as seriously as the larger projects in the course. These smaller assignments not only help inform the larger papers, but they also add up when it comes to points. Yes, they aren’t worth much, but when finals week is upon us, and the final paper isn’t looking great, those little 10-point assignments being turned in can sometimes be what salvages a grade.  

Every student must find what works for them regarding the readings and smaller assignments. For some, reading for an hour before bed may work. For others, they may be more alert in the mornings. Some may need to focus on one class at a time, completing the reading and assignment for that week, then moving on to another class. Others may be able to complete the readings, then complete the discussion boards later.  Once a student has found out what works for them, I encourage them to be consistent. Consistency will lead to success. The only thing I tell students not to do is avoid the readings and small assignments altogether. As long as they are doing them, there is a lot of flexibility as to how they are fitting them into the schedule. 

This is an example of what I teach my students regarding time management and maximizing their study time as much as they possibly can. As I mentioned, choosing what to work on is the hardest part of a study session. However, once the student gets into the habit of using these simple tips, their study time will not only be maximized, but it will also be effective. And an effective study session is, of course, the goal of every student.