- Reduces your tendency to procrastinate. Once you have
a realistic idea of the specific things you must accomplish and
know that you have allocated sufficient time to do so, you’re
less likely to get frustrated and put them off. - Helps you avoid time traps. Time traps are the fires you
have to put out before you can turn to tasks like studying.
Time management is like a fire-preventionapproach rather
than a fire-fightingone: It allows you to go about your work
systematically instead of moving from crisis to crisis or whim
to whim. - Helps you anticipate opportunities. In addition to helping
you balance study time with other time demands, effective
time management can help make the time you dospend
studying more productive. - Gives you freedom and control. Contrary to many students’
fears, time management is liberating, not restrictive. A certain
control overpart of your day allows you to be flexible with the
restof your day. - Helps you avoid time conflicts. Simply having all of your
activities, assignments, appointments, errands, and reminders
written down in oneplace helps ensure that two or three
things don’t get scheduled at once. If time conflicts do arise,
you will notice them well in advance and be able to rearrange
things accordingly. - Helps you avoid feeling guilty. It is much easier to forget
about studying if you’ve already allotted the time for it.
Without a plan to finish the work you are doing, you may
feel like it’s “hanging over your head”—even when you’re not
working on it.
Chapter 4 ■How to Organize Your TIme 77