Time Management Skills for Students to Stay Organized

One of the most important life skills you can learn to prep for college is how to plan ahead and manage time well while you’re still in high school. However, it might be up to you to empower yourself in the art of time management, as a recent study shows that nearly half of all college students feel that they weren’t properly taught the necessary organizational skills while in high school. 

David T. Conley, Ph.D., director of the Center for Educational Policy Research, and author of "College Knowledge: What It Really Takes for Students to Succeed and What We Can Do to Get Them Ready" confirmed this: "Students need both academic skills and organizational skills to manage the many competing interests that college life offers. While critical thinking and comprehension skills are essential for any college course, it's also important that students have the ability to effectively manage their time."

So, what are the top time management benefits you will experience? Here are seven:

1. Boost confidence by staying on top of responsibilities and expectations.
2. Stay on top of your to-dos and know what you need to do and when.
3. Achieve goals by aligning your priorities to your weekly availability. 
4. Prioritize to focus on the most important tasks first.
5. Minimize decision paralysis by reducing procrastination.
6. Reduce stress and time anxiety by getting things done on time.
7. Be more efficient by limiting content switching and maximizing focus.

In addition to the above-mentioned attributes, by finding the right type of academic planner early on, you can become accustomed to its mechanisms and get into the habit of regular use. Read on to discover a mix of paper planners and online apps that are great options for teens, and even college students. 

Let’s take a look. 

Paper Time Management Options

8-Period Student Planner

Colorful and cute academic student planners may be fun, but sometimes it’s better to minimize distractions. This simple setup includes useful features like an assignment tracker, long-term study planner, at-a-glance pages, and more.

Cost: $8.99

Buy it: 8-Period Student Planner at Amazon

Day Designer

Super-busy students will appreciate the ability to plan out each day down to the hour, so they’ll never miss a practice, club meeting, or family game night. Day Designer offers a huge array of cover designs, including the ability to customize your own. This would make a great personalized back-to-school gift for a high schooler or college freshman.

Cost: $28.70

Buy it: Day Designer at Amazon

Five Star Student Planner + Study App

If you want the best of both worlds, check out this planner/app combo. The paper planner is perfect for middle or high school students, with room to plan out each day by class period. Then, students scan items into the Study App using the handwriting recognition feature, so they’ll have reminders on-the-go.

Cost: $20.99

Buy it: Five Star Student Planner + Study App at Amazon

Online Time Management Options

Google Calendar/Apple Calendar

While ‍Google Calendar is the #1 digital calendar app in the world, Mac users might be more comfortable using the Apple Calendar their Mac provides. Either helps you organize and visualize your weekly schedule of classes, events, and tasks on your plate. And, by using either the Google Calendar or the Apple Calendar’s time blocking options, you can get the most out of the app by building out one centralized place to plan exactly what you’re going to be doing, and when. 

Learn more: Google Calendar or Apple Calendar

Cost: Free

MyStudyLife

This popular online planner is available on any device, via apps or a website. Customize your calendar, add items to a to-do list, and get reminders when you need them. This free planner has a lot to offer students, without distracting bells and whistles.

Learn more: MyStudyLife

Cost: Free

myHomework

This app’s free (ad-supported) version is pretty robust, with all the basic planning tools most students need. For a very minimal yearly fee, you can remove ads and receive access to premium features like the ability to share your schedule with others. 

Cost: Free (ad-supported) or premium for $4.99/year

Learn more: myHomework

Todoist

When you have school assignments, to-dos, personal responsibilities, event invites, and more coming at you in every direction from every inbox and platform — it can very quickly become hard to keep track of everything you need to do. 

Todoist puts a more efficient spin on the classic to-do list. Instead of having your to-do lists scattered around on sticky notes, papers, journals, your inbox, or docs — Todoist allows you to create digital lists for the day with organized categories, due dates, and subtasks. 23% of students try to keep track of their tasks and to-dos by memory, but by planning out a list of your daily goals - and compiling all future to-dos in one master list in Todoist — you can better track what you have going on. 

Cost: Free starter plan, paid plans start at $4/month 

Learn more: Pricing | Todoist

Pomofocus

The Pomodoro Method (one of the most popular time management tricks ever invented) was created in the 1980 by a college student, Francesco Cirillo. Using a tomato-shaped kitchen timer (which is where the name comes from — the Italian word for tomato), this method maximized his productivity by allowing him to focus on one task for 25-minutes, then take a five minute break to regroup, before doing it over again.

Pomofocus is an online app that digitizes the Pomodoro Method that allows you to set the duration and breaks for your focus sessions. While lots of items on a to-do list can feel overwhelming — 25 minutes is a very manageable amount of time for most people to dedicate full focus to one task. 

Cost: Free

Learn more: Pomofocus

College preparation is vitally important as you make your way through high school. By learning to manage your time efficiently, by using either paper planners and tools — or by adopting digital options — you will reduce your stress levels and build confidence to tackle your collegiate workload more successfully.