Time Management for Working Students

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsPrioritiesSchedulesDowntimeProcrastinationTools

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Table of Contents

Priorities

Schedules

Downtime

Procrastination

Tools

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At a GlanceIf you are working and going to school, time management will be key to making sure you can meet your goals as an employee and a student.

At a Glance

If you are working and going to school, time management will be key to making sure you can meet your goals as an employee and a student.

Students who are also doing work at a job—either to put themselves through college or because they’re going back to school after entering the workforce—often find it hard to juggle everything they need to do in a day.

Time management is key if you’re a working student. It can feel overwhelming, but there are some practical steps you can take to balance your school and work responsibilities.

Let’s talk about time management for students who are also working, including some tips for achieving your goals.

How to Make College Less Stressful

Prioritize

Before you can start planning to get things done, you need a clear idea of what you need to do. You also need to have a sense of the order in which you should tackle the tasks you need to complete.

Put the tasks that need to be done soonest at the top. Once you’ve got all the high-priority items in place, look at the items that don’t have a firm “due date” but more of a suggested timeline.

Be Ready to Say NoIf you’ve got a full list of things to do and many of them are top priorities, keep in mind that you may not be able to take on anything else. If someone asks you to do something or an opportunity comes up, be prepared to say no—or at least “not right now.”

Be Ready to Say No

If you’ve got a full list of things to do and many of them are top priorities, keep in mind that you may not be able to take on anything else. If someone asks you to do something or an opportunity comes up, be prepared to say no—or at least “not right now.”

What to Do When You’re Overwhelmed, According to a Therapist

Make a Schedule

Probably the firsttime managementtip anyone would give you is to make a schedule and stick to it. Why? It works! It seems obvious and simple, but a schedule is one of the most straightforward ways to manage your time.

When those times are marked, you’ll be able to see what other time is available for other tasks like studying and taking care of responsibilities at home (here’s where you can work on laundry day and grocery shopping).

Should You Change Your Schedule to Match Your Biological Clock?

Use Downtime to Recharge

You’ll also have to accept that sometimes your downtime may have to be cut short. You only have so many hours in a day. When you’re overly stressed, you may want to lean more heavily into self-care—but instead of using it to shore up your reserves, you’re turning to it as an escape.

For example, if you’ve been working and studying all day, reading a chapter or two of a book for fun as you get ready for bed would be making time for self-care. On the other hand, if you binge-watch an entire season of your favorite show because you’re too overwhelmed to start writing a paper you’ve been putting off for a week, that’s avoidance.

You don’t have to take an “all-or-nothing” approach. You just need to balance the restorative power of stress-relieving activities with meeting your responsibilities.

Taking a short break can help you refocus. When you come back to your work, you might even be more productive. But resisting the urge toalwayschoose a “fun” pursuit over the more challenging things you need to do requires self-discipline.

Being able to balance work, play, and rest is key to achieving your goals, but it takes practice and honesty. You need to tune into your needs but also be real with yourself about whether a break will help you or if it’s just a way for you to justify not doing something you don’t want to do.

Top 10 Stress Management Techniques for Students

Try Not to Procrastinate

Whether you’re putting off writing a research paper or doing a required (but boring) training for work, procrastination is something that even the most motivated and well-organized people do.

When you’re thinking about all the things you have to do, maybe you tend to see every single step along the way. Not surprisingly, it all starts to look like too much, and you get overwhelmed and just do nothing. Then, as you start thinking about all the stuff you have to do that you’renotdoing, the anxiety sets in.

But instead of getting started on the task, you just keep putting it off. And then you feel guilty. Maybe you even start doing other things that aren’t even on your big to-do list just to feel like you’re doingsomething.To relieve the guilt you feel about putting a task off, you do other stuff (like household chores) to make it seem like you are accomplishing something.

Sound familiar?Procrastinationmight be common, but it’s not helpful. It can make it harder to manage your time effectively.

If you feel procrastination seeping in, you’ll have to get real with yourself about the consequences of it. While it might feel better in the moment to free yourself from a task, you’re just making the “later” pile bigger. The truth is, if you’ve broken up a big goal into smaller tasks, the time it takes you to “do the thing” is often much shorter than you think. Once you’ve started, you’ll feel relief at getting it done.

It can also help to think more creatively about the task. For example, does the order of your to-do list matter? Could you shake up some tasks so there’s a little more variety? For example, could you do a few work tasks first, then do some coursework, then do some chores?

How to Overcome Procrastination

Use Tools

If you’ve got a laptop, tablet, and/or smartphone, you’ve already got a lot of tools to help you manage your time. There are apps and programs for everything—from scheduling and setting goals and reminders to enforcing productivity and reducing procrastination.

Here are just a few examples of tools you can use:

Best Time Management Apps of 2023

6 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Aeon B, Faber A, Panaccio A.Does time management work? A meta-analysis.PLoS One. 2021;16(1):e0245066. Published 2021 Jan 11. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0245066Hamid A, Eissa MA.The effectiveness of time management strategies instruction on students’ academic time management and academic self efficacy.Online Submission. 2015;4(1):43-50.McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning.Principles of effective time management for balance, well-being, and success.Maslach C, Leiter MP.Understanding the burnout experience: recent research and its implications for psychiatry.World Psychiatry. 2016;15(2):103–111. doi:10.1002/wps.20311Boniwell I, Osin E, Sircova A.Introducing time perspective coaching: A new approach to improve time management and enhance well-being.International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring. 2014 Aug;12(2):24.Rozental A, Forsström D, Hussoon A, Klingsieck KB.Procrastination among university students: differentiating severe cases in need of support from less severe cases.Front Psychol. 2022;13:783570. Published 2022 Mar 15. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.783570

6 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Aeon B, Faber A, Panaccio A.Does time management work? A meta-analysis.PLoS One. 2021;16(1):e0245066. Published 2021 Jan 11. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0245066Hamid A, Eissa MA.The effectiveness of time management strategies instruction on students’ academic time management and academic self efficacy.Online Submission. 2015;4(1):43-50.McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning.Principles of effective time management for balance, well-being, and success.Maslach C, Leiter MP.Understanding the burnout experience: recent research and its implications for psychiatry.World Psychiatry. 2016;15(2):103–111. doi:10.1002/wps.20311Boniwell I, Osin E, Sircova A.Introducing time perspective coaching: A new approach to improve time management and enhance well-being.International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring. 2014 Aug;12(2):24.Rozental A, Forsström D, Hussoon A, Klingsieck KB.Procrastination among university students: differentiating severe cases in need of support from less severe cases.Front Psychol. 2022;13:783570. Published 2022 Mar 15. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.783570

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Aeon B, Faber A, Panaccio A.Does time management work? A meta-analysis.PLoS One. 2021;16(1):e0245066. Published 2021 Jan 11. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0245066Hamid A, Eissa MA.The effectiveness of time management strategies instruction on students’ academic time management and academic self efficacy.Online Submission. 2015;4(1):43-50.McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning.Principles of effective time management for balance, well-being, and success.Maslach C, Leiter MP.Understanding the burnout experience: recent research and its implications for psychiatry.World Psychiatry. 2016;15(2):103–111. doi:10.1002/wps.20311Boniwell I, Osin E, Sircova A.Introducing time perspective coaching: A new approach to improve time management and enhance well-being.International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring. 2014 Aug;12(2):24.Rozental A, Forsström D, Hussoon A, Klingsieck KB.Procrastination among university students: differentiating severe cases in need of support from less severe cases.Front Psychol. 2022;13:783570. Published 2022 Mar 15. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.783570

Aeon B, Faber A, Panaccio A.Does time management work? A meta-analysis.PLoS One. 2021;16(1):e0245066. Published 2021 Jan 11. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0245066

Hamid A, Eissa MA.The effectiveness of time management strategies instruction on students’ academic time management and academic self efficacy.Online Submission. 2015;4(1):43-50.

McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning.Principles of effective time management for balance, well-being, and success.

Maslach C, Leiter MP.Understanding the burnout experience: recent research and its implications for psychiatry.World Psychiatry. 2016;15(2):103–111. doi:10.1002/wps.20311

Boniwell I, Osin E, Sircova A.Introducing time perspective coaching: A new approach to improve time management and enhance well-being.International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring. 2014 Aug;12(2):24.

Rozental A, Forsström D, Hussoon A, Klingsieck KB.Procrastination among university students: differentiating severe cases in need of support from less severe cases.Front Psychol. 2022;13:783570. Published 2022 Mar 15. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.783570

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