Time Management Skills And Stress Reduction

Life is full of hassles, deadliness, frustrations, and demands. As human beings, every person goes through the feeling of being under too much mental or emotional pressure in day to day life. When we find it difficult to cope up with this pressure, then it is simply termed as “Stress”. Stress – being defined in various ways in various fields causes the same kind of disturbance in life both mentally and physically. For some people, stress is just a common part of life whereas some take it as a harmful factor of life. It’s just the way how we deal with it. Time-management plays an important role in reducing the stress that we go through. One should be smart enough to understand the major factors that triggers stress.

COMMON STRESSORS OF LIFE

There are many different causes of stress.

Few of them are as follows:

1. Study stress
2. Academic problems
3. Stress in finding jobs
4. Workplace stress
5. Financial problems
6. Loss of loved one
7. Climatic condition and illness
8. Primary relationship problems
9. Stress between study and part time job
10. Stress in achieving future dreams and goals.

HOW LACK OF TIME MANAGEMENT AFFECTS ME?

• According to me, as I am an international student study pressure is the biggest stressor of my current life. The fear of achieving my future goals and dreams keeps taunting me during this point of time, which makes me feel I should never fail in any subjects.
• A college environment’s freedom and flexibility can derail students who haven’t mastered time-management skills. Having left high school’s rigidly structured schedules behind, I often struggle to balance academic, personal and work commitments after arriving on campus.
• Academic problems refer to the mental disturbance related to frustrations associated with academic failure. This is the stress that occurs due to the demands of the university life. As a student I must face many academic demands such as examinations, answering questions in the class, showing progress in all the subjects and so on. I have questions relating to how to best deal with study related stress, peer pressure, effective studying skills and other stuffs like that. Worries increase when something major comes up like research paper or final exam.
• Another matter that stresses me is the upcoming worry of finding an appropriate job for myself after the completion of my studies. Though I need not worry about it presently, it still bothers me because of which I tend to focus less on current academics and there occurs poor time management.
• As a part time job holder, I always must go through the stress of works that I am committed to do and that somewhere causes me physical health disturbance followed by procrastinating my study related stuffs.
• Also, money has always been bothering me because I need to spend on my living expenses, gather some for my fees and all this must be done only by the source of my part time works.
• Recently I went through an emotional stress when I lost my cousin a couple of months ago. I couldn’t be there with my family in that situation as I am far from them for my study’s sake and this caused me an emotional disturbance and I could hardly concentrate on my regular stuffs.
• Climate is one another factor that has been bothering me as the extreme cold climate is becoming quite difficult for me to adjust and this somewhere leads me to health issues.
• I may not always be able to contact my family living far from me due to my busy schedules and that makes me feel low at times and it stresses me. Gradually, due to the low feeling I happen to get distracted from my studies and work.
• Managing both study and part time job is a little hard thing as I always need to be there in both the areas as per the schedules. This always make me run after them according to the timings and makes me exhausted. Ultimately, after a long day of hectic work I feel stressed both by body and mind.
• Future planning is very important for every person. As a student I need to think about where exactly I should be belonging i. e. what should be my permanent zone of work and how well can I be settled in life. I contribute heavy thinking by my mind to myself related to future and how to achieve the goals in life.

TIME MANAGEMENT SKILLS

As a student, I am probably busy managing time for my assignments and studying on top of my social life and other work duties. If I am constantly feeling rushed and unprepared for class or exams, then perhaps it is the time to improve my time management skills. Best way to do so is to consider the following tips:

• Make a schedule: it is good to schedule out one block of time or break the study sessions up into smaller periods. Make a list of things to be done and prioritize it accordingly like exams, assignments, projects. I want to be reminded, So I can also keep schedule alerts on my smartphone.
• Rid myself of distraction: distractions seem to be around every corner. Whether it’s my smartphone, the TV, or any new song of my favorite celebrity, it’s easy to get caught up in fun or relaxing activities when I should be studying. Worse of all, distractions can lead to procrastination.

Ways to avoid distractions:

• Turn off the smartphone.
• Disable the social media accounts during class or work hours.
• Finish short projects quickly.
• Remove clutter from my study area
• Complete important tasks first: while planning a schedule, I should make sure that I list the most important tasks first. If I finish them first then I could reap the benefits of more relaxation time towards the end of the day. When I focus first on projects with close deadliness, then I can put more energy into finishing them sooner.
• Study during spare time: if I have spare time during my day, I can whip out my notes and take advantage of the free time. It will feel great to stay productive. And also, when I study in different places my mind starts to form associations with my studies and improves my memory. Ultimately, during my exam, I may thank myself for putting my free time to good use.
• Financial planning: As a student and a part time job holder, I should have a good planning to make my payments and to manage some savings so that I does not have to plan at the end moment what on to be spend and where I should save.
• Spending time with family: I was not able to manage time to talk with my parents or girlfriend in India as the time in India is 9 hours ahead of Canada. Now I have developed a strategy to talk to them once in two days by putting reminder on phone.
• Avoid the sofa and bed: everyone enjoys sitting on the couch after a long day. If I know that I am going to be productive, then I can avoid sitting on the couch or in bed while studying. I better stick to the rule where I can rest only after completing my tasks related to studies such as assignments or projects. I am determined and made myself understand this is the period where I must study and work hard and one day my hard work will be paid off. I am determined and focused in achieving my dreams and goals.

CONCLUSION

One should be smart enough to deal with stress in a positive way. To perceive time management skills is to play with stress which means stress cannot rule your mind and body when you know time management. The very thing that time management tells us is this- “YOUR EFFICIENCY MAKES YOU DO MANY THINGS BUT YOUR EFFECTIVENESS MAKES YOU DO THE RIGHT THING”. Hence it is very important to know the relationship between stress and time management in a positive way.