Time Management Tips for Every Student in Singapore

Are you struggling to stay on top of your school requirements? Increase your productivity and maximise the time you have for studies with these time management tips for students!

As a student, you're probably no stranger to packed schedules. 

In fact, many students struggle to balance their academic responsibilities with other commitments. From assignments to exams to extracurricular activities, it can be tough to keep everything organised. 

But with some smart time management tools and techniques for students, you can take control of your schedule and achieve your goals. 

Want to learn more? Keep reading to find out how you can make the most of your time! We’ll explore tips that show how to maximise study time in a way that can actually increase productivity.

As a student, you're probably no stranger to packed schedules. 

In fact, many students struggle to balance their academic responsibilities with other commitments. From assignments to exams to extracurricular activities, it can be tough to keep everything organised. 

But with some smart time management tools and techniques for students, you can take control of your schedule and achieve your goals. 

Want to learn more? Keep reading to find out how you can make the most of your time! We’ll explore tips that show how to maximise study time in a way that can actually increase productivity.

1. Prioritise Tasks

We can’t stress enough how important prioritising tasks is. It’s easily one of the fundamental time management skills for students. 

The trick here is to learn how to weigh and identify which tasks are the most important and address them accordingly. Focus on the most important tasks first to ensure they’re sorted before the minor ones.

So, how do you go about this? Try starting with a planner or creating your own written schedule.

When planning, sort the tasks according to complexity and deadlines. Rank them if you need to, in order to make this step easier.

You can even craft time estimates for how long you think it will take to complete a task. The tasks with the longest estimates can be split up into multiple portions, to make them more manageable for scheduling (more on this later!).

Once you have them sorted, you can slot them into spots in your schedule based on importance or urgency. A daily schedule formed this way can help you manage your hours better. 

Just remember to be realistic about how much you can take on at a time and do only one task per slot in your schedule. This can help keep you from feeling overwhelmed by the list of tasks you have!

2. Break up tasks into smaller steps

We already touched on this earlier. The fact is that some tasks are just too big to be completed in a single go – so don’t beat yourself up over it if you run into them!

Review your tasks instead to see if there are some that you probably won’t finish in time. When you find them, re-evaluate them to see if breaking them up into two or more smaller tasks would be better.

This is an excellent way to help you stay on track with your tasklist. Better yet, it can keep you motivated to finish big tasks: for each part of it that you complete, you can feel a sense of accomplishment to keep yourself going!

A good example of a big task is a difficult essay or complicated research paper. You may consider splitting it up into smaller tasks by stages, e.g. the research stage, the outline-writing stage, the actual writing stage, and finally, the polishing stage.

3. Make use of a good planning tool

Disorganisation leads to poor time management. That’s why the two previous points emphasised the need for a planner, which is essentially a way to organise your day.

Now, personal planning tools can come in all shapes and sizes. They run the gamut from planners to calendars and can be traditional (like pen and paper) or digital (like phone planner apps).

Which one you use depends on your preferences and what you find works best for you. Test several if you like, then see which one seems easiest to use in your situation. 

Make sure that your planner provides a means to track important dates, by the way. This is actually where digital planners are especially useful: many of them can be set up to send you automatic notifications for things like deadlines!

4. Get ample rest 

Don’t forget to give yourself downtime! This is a mistake even working adults make, and it’s very often what leads to burnout.

Students also tend to neglect this part often. If you’re starting to feel too stressed and overwhelmed by your schedule, you may have made it too cramped. Look it over, consider where you can insert breaks or reschedule tasks, and adjust.

Granted, it may seem impossible when you’re already on a strict schedule – say, if you’re studying for exams on a time crunch.

But trust us when we say it will only make things worse if you don’t give yourself some rest periods. For one thing, the brain focuses less effectively when it lacks sleep, so whatever time you think you’ll have gained for tasks may well be used unproductively.

Take regular breaks, recharge and refocus, and remember that you’re only human. The world won’t fall apart if you give yourself a little consideration!  

Need more help managing your academic tasks?

Good time management can do a lot to help you deal with the challenges of being a student. That being said, there are times when you need a little more aid besides that.

For instance, it’s entirely possible that you also need a tutor to both organise your studies and guide you through them. That’s actually where our coaches can help.

At Aspire Hub, we approach tuition and enrichment in a way that makes it manageable for students. We don’t overload students and even craft learning plans based on each individual’s needs.

We also have small class sizes to help teachers provide individualised attention per student. In other words, we do all we can to make your studies easier and more effective.

Want to learn more? Enquire now at Aspire Hub. Or, if you want to explore more advice on learning to manage your time as a student, check out our other tips on the topic!