The clock is ticking. The light is dimming. Coffee-coated ice is melting, and the white, square page that lies before you is empty. Everyone has been here – the harrowing feeling of knowing a deadline is approaching and an assignment should be done, but now that it’s down to the wire your mind positions itself in the corner and throws a teary fit like a toddler.
Poor time management skills frequently leave students in difficult positions like this one. The University of Buffalo estimates that roughly a quarter of students are likely to become chronic procrastinators. To some degree everyone learns to live with these tiny torrential brain tantrums, but the cost of poor time management includes irritability, over- or under-eating and spending a fortune on Tylenol. All of this expense could be avoided by investing the mental energy lost to anxiety in a set of tools known as time management.
Despite being a somewhat daunting phrase, “Who can manage the fabric of time?” time management is simple and not metaphysical. It’s also important. Anxiety caused by poor time management can affect everything from peace of mind to grades, physical health to friendships.
Over 45 percent of college students report experiencing some form of anxiety, according to the American Psychological Association. The effect of stress and anxiety on interpersonal interaction is significant. Students can sit and chat as usual, but there’s always that little brain toddler, sitting on the shoulder, whispering and whining about the last math assignment or a looming essay that hasn’t been started. You may begin to feel detached, and your friends notice it as well.
If students utilized proactive time management skills, in this case employing something as simple as a planner to block out designated time for assignments and social engagements, the feeling would be liberating. No need for existential melancholy or tears over assignments, the brain would be free to enjoy the moment its in instead of laboring over work not done.
Another area in which proper time management could improve the general well being of its practitioner is food. Certainly it’s tempting, especially in college, free from parental training wheels, to eat whenever and whatever, as much and as little as one could imagine. Before reaching for the Scooby-Doo fruit snacks, however, students should hold back for a second and consider the power of routine. Time management is about the proper utilization of time to accomplish certain tasks and provide for an optimal work life balance.
If students are going to have a planner, the number one tool of any good time manager, they have to be willing to act on a schedule. That means creating a routine. What better place to start crafting a routine then with Kraft Mac n’ Cheese? Having set times to eat sets a precedent around which, like an organizational mad lib, you can slot different activities such as homework and study time.
“Anxiety symptoms can make you feel unwell,” writes Dr. Craig Sawchuk for the Mayo Clinic. “Coping with anxiety can be a challenge and often requires making lifestyle changes.”
It follows that one should be as mindful of what they eat as when they eat. Eating small amounts of protein in the morning and complex carbohydrates, such as whole grains and oatmeal, throughout the day will go a long way in easing any anxious strain exacted upon our mind and body.
