Time Management & Organization

Most students find that their greatest challenge in adjusting to college life and to succeeding in the classroom is managing their time effectively.  Effective time management allows students to complete more in less time, because their attention is focused and they're not wasting time on distractions. It can also provide a sense of achievement from fulfilling goals. 

Drake Access and Success Resources

• Take the Following Time Management Survey and find out what type of planner you are! 
  • Time Management Survey
• If you are finding yourself struggling and constantly wondering why you don't have enough time to get anything done, its time for you to step back and truly assess how you are spending your time in college.
  • Time Waster Survey
• Being a student usually involves a great deal of responsibility and very little time to accomplish everything. We all begin each week with 168 hours.  Use the following worksheet to help plan your 168-hour work week.
  • Planning Your Week
• Planning is very important with time management and organization.  Scheduling your time may seem like an inconvenience but only will take 10 minutes at the beginning of each week.  Use the following hourly calendar to help with scheduling. 
  • Hourly Schedule

Additional Resources

• Todoist: Todoist is a task management application that helps you manage your personal and professional productivity. You can use it to manage your tasks from a smartphone, tablet or computer. 
• My Study Life: My Study Life is a cross platform planner for students, teachers and lecturers designed to make your study life easier to manage. My Study Life allows you to store your classes, homework and exams in the cloud making it available on any device, wherever you are. 
• Freecollegeschedulemaker.com: Create a weekly schedule for all of your classes, study time and activities in minutes with this free schdule maker. 
• How to Plan an Assignment (Wayne State University): This website allows you to put in an assignment due date and then divides the 12 steps to finishing the paper into daily due dates. Each date provides extra information on how to complete the tasks required.
• Overcoming procrastination (Mindtools.com): Website that defines procrastination and provides three steps for how to understand and manage your procrastination habits.
• On Procrastination (Kansas State University): This website can help you understand when procrastination becomes a problem, the 6 most common reasons for procrastination, the areas where you personally procrastinate the most, and how to overcome procrastination.
• Procrastination Solutions (Oregon State University): List of 10 strategies to use in daily life to combat procrastination.
• Studious (course management): App that not only reminds you when you have homework due or a test to study for but also has the ability to keep your phone on silent during class times.
• Fantastical (calendar): App that easily allows you to create events in your calendar and edit them on the go so that you can schedule out your time successfully.
• IDoneThis (to-do manager): Helpful program that sends you emails every night asking you to respond to it and record how you were productive that day to hold you accountable. Allows you to congratulate friends on a productive day if they also subscribe to the email list.
• TeuxDeux (to-do manager): App that allows you to create to-do lists in an easy way that also allows you to make edits and check things off.