does homework help with time management skills

teaching you to manage homework effectively

Importance of Time Management for Students: How Homework Helps

Time management is a critical skill that can make or break a student’s academic success. Whether in high school or college or just a graduate student working on a thesis, managing your time effectively can help you set your priorities straight and reach your full potential.

Homework, in particular, plays a crucial role in helping students develop good time management skills. With the right strategies and techniques, you can use homework to create a schedule, prioritize tasks, and stay on top of your workload.

This article will explore how homework helps with time management and provide tips and tricks for making the most of your time.

Time management importance for students: why should they take it seriously?

Before we examine how homework can help students with time management, let’s evaluate its importance.

As you might already know, time management is planning, organizing, and allocating time effectively to achieve specific goals or objectives. It typically involves developing priorities, creating a schedule, and manufacturing strategies for achieving tasks efficiently.

So why is time management important for students?

Time management is important for students because it helps them prioritize their tasks, meet deadlines, and balance their academic and personal responsibilities. Effective time management allows even the most average students to make the most of their time, reducing stress and improving their academic performance.

Additionally, good time management skills are essential for success in college and the workforce, as they help individuals become more productive and efficient in completing tasks.

How does homework help students with time management in their schoolwork?

Homework can help students with time management in several ways, some include:

• Prioritization

Homework assignments provide students with a clear list of tasks that need to be completed, which helps them prioritize their time and focus on what is most important.

Homework is typically given with due dates, encouraging students to plan and schedule their time accordingly.

• Accountability

Homework helps students develop a sense of responsibility for their learning and progress. It encourages students to take ownership of their time and use it effectively.

Homework allows students to practice time management skills such as planning, scheduling, and prioritizing. It also offers long-term benefits that will serve them well in college and the workforce.

It is important to note that homework alone is not enough to develop good time management skills; it should be combined with other techniques such as creating a schedule, setting goals, and breaking down large tasks into smaller manageable chunks.

School homework management software: what is it and how does it work?

A critical aspect of homework time management is using various educational software that supports organizational learning. Various types of homework management system or software are available to help students and teachers manage and organize homework assignments. Some popular options include:

• Google Classroom

This free platform allows teachers to assign and collect homework digitally, provide feedback, and communicate with students.

• Show My Homework

This web-based platform allows teachers to create, assign and track homework. It also offers a student calendar, which allows students to view and keep track of their homework assignments.

• My Study Life

This is a cross-platform planner for students, teachers, and lecturers, which helps them to manage their classes, homework, exams, and assignments.

• Microsoft Teams

It’s part of the Microsoft 365 suite, and it allows teachers to assign homework and communicate with students, and also students can collaborate and communicate with their peers for assignments.

• Blackboard Learn

It’s a Learning management system (LMS) that allows teachers to create and manage homework assignments, and grades, and provide feedback to students. This software can help students to stay organized and keep track of their assignments, and also helps teachers to easily manage and monitor student progress, provide feedback, and communicate with students.

Bottom line

Now, if you’re ever asked how does homework help with time management? Time management is an essential skill for students, and it can be particularly helpful when managing homework. You can emphasize how they help create schedules, set goals, establish routines, and take care of students’ physical and mental well-being.

Developing good time management skills improves student performance in school and helps develop a sense of discipline and responsibility that will serve them well in their future endeavors.

Science of mind

Why is homework good for your brain?

Did you know that homework has a profound impact on brain development? It’s not just about completing assignments; homework can actually improve brain function and enhance cognitive abilities.

Homework is designed to help students prepare for the future and develop skills that are essential for success in life. It offers several cognitive benefits, including the development of memory and critical thinking skills. By practicing and repeating new skills through homework, students can enhance their memory and retain knowledge for exams and future tests.

But that’s not all. Homework also helps students build suitable study habits, learn time management, realize personal responsibility, work independently, and improve their ability to use resources and conduct research.

Key Takeaways:

• Homework improves brain function and enhances cognitive abilities.
• By practicing and repeating new skills through homework, students can enhance their memory and retain knowledge.
• Homework helps students build suitable study habits, learn time management, and realize personal responsibility.
• Homework fosters independence and the ability to use resources effectively.
• Research shows that designing and assigning homework correctly can optimize its effectiveness as a learning tool.

The Cognitive Benefits of Homework

Homework is not just a task assigned by teachers to keep students occupied after school; it has far-reaching cognitive benefits and contributes to brain growth and development. Through various homework assignments, students have the opportunity to enhance critical thinking skills, memory retention, and problem-solving abilities.

One essential cognitive benefit of homework is its ability to challenge and develop critical thinking skills. By applying the concepts they’ve learned in class to real-life situations, students can deepen their understanding and improve their analytical thinking abilities. This practice fosters a deeper level of comprehension and encourages students to actively engage with the material.

Another cognitive benefit of homework is its positive impact on memory retention. Through practice and repetition of new skills and knowledge, students reinforce the neural connections in their brains, making the information more accessible and easier to recall. This improved memory retention helps students perform better on exams and enhances their overall academic performance.

Homework also plays a crucial role in developing problem-solving abilities. Assignments that require students to think critically and find innovative solutions to complex problems help cultivate their analytical and logical thinking skills. These problem-solving abilities are essential for success in various aspects of life, from academic pursuits to professional careers.

Overall, homework has a profound impact on cognitive development, providing students with opportunities to enhance critical thinking, memory retention, and problem-solving abilities. By engaging in regular homework assignments, students can nurture these essential cognitive skills and lay a solid foundation for their future academic and professional success.

Building Essential Skills Through Homework

Homework plays a vital role in building essential skills that are crucial for academic success and beyond. It provides students with the opportunity to develop effective study habits, learn time management, cultivate personal responsibility, and engage in independent work.

One of the key benefits of homework is the development of study habits. Through regular homework assignments, students learn how to plan their study sessions, set realistic goals, and effectively organize their time. By following consistent study routines, students can maximize their learning potential and improve their overall academic performance.

Time management is another vital skill that homework helps students develop. By juggling multiple assignments and deadlines, students learn to prioritize tasks, allocate their time effectively, and meet their academic obligations. These skills are essential not only for academic success but also for managing responsibilities in other areas of life.

Homework also fosters a sense of personal responsibility. Being accountable for completing assignments on time and to the best of their ability teaches students the importance of taking ownership of their education. It instills a work ethic that can significantly impact their future success, both inside and outside the classroom.

Furthermore, homework promotes independent work and critical thinking skills. Through assignments that require students to apply concepts learned in class, they develop their problem-solving abilities and deepen their understanding of the subject matter. This type of independent work encourages students to think creatively, analyze information critically, and develop their own perspectives.

By engaging in homework, students are actively building these essential skills that will benefit them throughout their education and beyond. The combination of effective study habits, time management, personal responsibility, and independent work fosters self-discipline, resilience, and a lifelong love of learning.

Testimonial:

“Homework has been instrumental in developing my study habits and time management skills. It has taught me the importance of setting goals and staying organized. Through homework, I’ve become more accountable and independent in my learning.” – Jane Smith, High School Student

Homework and Research Skills

When it comes to homework, research skills are essential for academic success. Homework assignments often require students to explore various resources, such as research papers, books, websites, and videos. By delving into these resources, students develop the ability to effectively use different information sources and enhance their understanding of the subject matter.

Research skills acquired through homework not only improve students’ academic performance but also prepare them to navigate the vast amount of information available in the digital age. By honing their research skills, students become adept at finding relevant and reliable information, analyzing different sources, and critically evaluating the credibility and validity of the information they come across.

Research skills acquired through homework contribute to academic success and prepare students for future challenges.

Through homework, students develop the persistence and resilience necessary to delve deep into a topic, locate relevant information, and synthesize their findings in a coherent manner. These skills are not only valuable during their academic journey but will also benefit them throughout their lives as they continue to learn and grow.

Moreover, conducting research for homework assignments instills a sense of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge in students. It encourages them to explore beyond the textbook and develop a broader perspective on the topics they are studying. They learn to ask questions, seek answers, and develop a lifelong love for learning.

Overall, homework assignments that require research skills play a vital role in shaping students’ intellectual growth, fostering critical thinking, and preparing them for the challenges they will face in their future academic and professional endeavors.

The Science of Homework Efficiency

When it comes to homework, there is a science behind ensuring its maximum effectiveness as a learning tool. Research has shown that the way homework is designed and assigned can have a significant impact on student performance. To optimize learning outcomes, homework should provide independent learning opportunities and present challenges that facilitate deliberate practice of essential content and skills.

One factor that can greatly affect the efficiency of homework is task switching. Constantly switching between homework and distractions like social media can significantly prolong the time spent on assignments. To overcome this, it is crucial to encourage students to delay gratification by using social media as a reward after completing their assignments. By eliminating distractions and focusing on the task at hand, students can deepen their learning and complete their homework more efficiently.

Adopting a scientific approach to tackling homework can lead to improved academic performance. By implementing strategies that optimize learning, such as organizing study sessions, setting goals, and utilizing resources effectively, students can enhance their understanding of the subject matter and improve their overall learning outcomes. By prioritizing uninterrupted focus and disciplined work, students can transform homework into a valuable learning experience that prepares them for success in their academic endeavors.

Source Links

• https://www.crispebooks.org/
• http://www.math.usf.edu/~mccolm/pedagogy/HWgood.html
• https://www.edutopia.org/blog/homework-sleep-and-student-brain-glenn-whitman

Similar Posts

How to get rid of brain fog?

How much does brain surgery cost with insurance?

What does toxic stress do to the brain?

How do I tell if I am overstimulated?

Are there cognitive exercises to improve brain health?

How can I regenerate my brain cells naturally?

The Case for Homework

• Posted September 29, 2016
• By Matt Weber

This fall, the start of the new school year seemingly brought with it a trend of teachers forgoing homework assignments in order to allow their students more time outside of school for family and play. A number of these announcements took off on social media, with many parents supporting the stance and wishing that their own child's teacher would follow suit. While few would dispute the importance of family and play time for young children, it may be shortsighted to believe that eliminating homework altogether is the answer.

"All children should be doing homework," says Duke University Professor Harris M. Cooper , who has researched and wrote on the topic for over 25 years. While Cooper acknowledges that an excess of homework is both unnecessary and potentially detrimental, the upside of homework is too great to ignore. Not only is it important in reinforcing skills learned during the school day, it also teaches time management, study skills, and independent learning, as well as keeps parents connected to their children's learning.

"Really good homework assignments" in subjects such as math and science, says Cooper, also highlight skills children use in other areas of their life — in sports, games, and everyday tasks like grocery shopping with their parents. "A really good teacher is one that takes the skills that [their students] are learning in the abstract — or more abstract — in their classroom, and uses homework to show them these are the skills they need to enjoy things they do even more," says Cooper.

In this edition of the Harvard EdCast, Cooper evaluates the dissatisfaction with homework practices and discusses all of the reasons why, for children, homework is essential.

About the Harvard EdCast

The Harvard EdCast is a weekly series of podcasts, available on the Harvard University iTunes U page, that features a 15-20 minute conversation with thought leaders in the field of education from across the country and around the world. Hosted by Matt Weber, the Harvard EdCast is a space for educational discourse and openness, focusing on the myriad issues and current events related to the field.

An education podcast that keeps the focus simple: what makes a difference for learners, educators, parents, and communities

Related Articles

Ingredients of Early Success

Helping Children Succeed

After the Journey

Duke Study: Homework Helps Students Succeed in School, As Long as There Isn't Too Much

The study, led by professor Harris Cooper, also shows that the positive correlation is much stronger for secondary students than elementary students

• Share this story on facebook
• Share this story on twitter
• Share this story on reddit
• Share this story on linkedin
• Get this story's permalink
• Print this story

It turns out that parents are right to nag: To succeed in school, kids should do their homework.

Duke University researchers have reviewed more than 60 research studies on homework between 1987 and 2003 and concluded that homework does have a positive effect on student achievement.

Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology, said the research synthesis that he led showed the positive correlation was much stronger for secondary students --- those in grades 7 through 12 --- than those in elementary school.

READ MORE: Harris Cooper offers tips for teaching children in the next school year in this USA Today op-ed published Monday.

"With only rare exception, the relationship between the amount of homework students do and their achievement outcomes was found to be positive and statistically significant," the researchers report in a paper that appears in the spring 2006 edition of "Review of Educational Research."

Cooper is the lead author; Jorgianne Civey Robinson, a Ph.D. student in psychology, and Erika Patall, a graduate student in psychology, are co-authors. The research was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

While it's clear that homework is a critical part of the learning process, Cooper said the analysis also showed that too much homework can be counter-productive for students at all levels.

"Even for high school students, overloading them with homework is not associated with higher grades," Cooper said.

Cooper said the research is consistent with the "10-minute rule" suggesting the optimum amount of homework that teachers ought to assign. The "10-minute rule," Cooper said, is a commonly accepted practice in which teachers add 10 minutes of homework as students progress one grade. In other words, a fourth-grader would be assigned 40 minutes of homework a night, while a high school senior would be assigned about two hours. For upper high school students, after about two hours' worth, more homework was not associated with higher achievement.

The authors suggest a number of reasons why older students benefit more from homework than younger students. First, the authors note, younger children are less able than older children to tune out distractions in their environment. Younger children also have less effective study habits.

But the reason also could have to do with why elementary teachers assign homework. Perhaps it is used more often to help young students develop better time management and study skills, not to immediately affect their achievement in particular subject areas.

"Kids burn out," Cooper said. "The bottom line really is all kids should be doing homework, but the amount and type should vary according to their developmental level and home circumstances. Homework for young students should be short, lead to success without much struggle, occasionally involve parents and, when possible, use out-of-school activities that kids enjoy, such as their sports teams or high-interest reading."

Cooper pointed out that there are limitations to current research on homework. For instance, little research has been done to assess whether a student's race, socioeconomic status or ability level affects the importance of homework in his or her achievement.

This is Cooper's second synthesis of homework research. His first was published in 1989 and covered nearly 120 studies in the 20 years before 1987. Cooper's recent paper reconfirms many of the findings from the earlier study.

Cooper is the author of "The Battle over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents" (Corwin Press, 2001).

Link to this page

Copy and paste the URL below to share this page.

College Cures

Everything College, No Prerequisites.

How Does Homework Help with Time Management

Many experts who provide professional homework help claim that dealing with home assignments regularly helps a student manage their time better. Solving your tasks, you’ll not only increase your knowledge on the needed subjects but also improve your skills with managing time.

How Homework Makes You Manage Your Time Better

• It makes you more disciplined.

If you have a lot of home tasks to deal with, it’s likely that you won’t have the time to procrastinate. You’ll begin your work soon and use the time you have effectively rather than take unnecessarily long breaks after solving each assignment.

• It helps you set the priorities.

Having plenty of home tasks to solve, you might not have the time to engage in all activities that you’ve planned for the day. As a result, you’ll have to learn to prioritize your actions and drop some entertaining activities for the sake of more important things.

• It helps you assume how much time you’ll spend on each activity.

Popular site Homework Help Desk confirms that if you regularly deal with different tasks, you’ll be able to calculate how much time you’re likely to spend on each particular homework assignment. This way, you’ll be able to assume how much time your entire set of tasks will take you to complete. As a result, you’ll know how much free time you’ll be left with after your work and will be able to plan your day better.

• It helps you learn to complete long-term tasks on schedule.

There are many types of home assignments that a student cannot complete in one day, like creating a research paper, for example. If you learn to manage your time properly and deal with such assignments in time, it’ll greatly help you in the adult life. It’s full of long-term planning.

Time Management Tips: How to Do Your Home Tasks Faster

• Start early. It’s recommended to begin dealing with your assignments during the breaks while you’re still in school or college. If you don’t have a clear understanding of how some of your assignments should be dealt with, you’ll have an opportunity to consult your teachers or other students.
• Keep your workplace organized. Once you return from school or college, it’s advisable to begin solving your home tasks immediately in order not to waste your time. Make sure that your workplace is convenient and that all the materials and instruments needed for your work are always kept in one place.
• Focus on your tasks. It’s important to make sure that nothing will distract you from your work. Switch off your television set and mobile devices. Use the Internet only for educational purposes. If it helps you concentrate, you may switch on quiet ambient or instrumental music.
• Work on one subject at a time. It’s not recommended to mix the assignments from different subjects. This might ruin your concentration. As a result, you’ll spend more time on the working process. It’s important to complete all the tasks in mathematics before moving on to geography, for example.
• Don’t complete all the assignments. If you need to finish your work as soon as possible, you may not work on the tasks that should be submitted in a week, for example. Solve only those assignments that you should submit on the following day.
• Take breaks. If you have plenty of tasks, it’s not recommended to deal with them in one fell swoop. This way, you’ll get tired very fast and the speed of your work will seriously slow down. If you take short regular breaks, however, some of your energy will be restored and you’ll be able to maintain the same working speed and effectiveness.

Getting Help with Homework

A good way to increase your speed of solving home assignments is using the assistance and advice of other sources. Enjoy the quality of professional essay writing services provided by  CustomWritings.com . Here are some other options that you may use:

• Inviting other students for help.

You may gather a study group consisting of you and several of your classmates. It’s likely that together, you’ll be able to solve even the most difficult tasks rather quickly.

• Taking educational courses.

If you have serious difficulties with a particular subject, you may go to a special educational center and sign up for additional courses in it.

• Hiring tutors.

Another way to get qualified college homework help is to hire a personal teacher to provide you with lessons in a particular subject.

• Dealing with writing companies.

On the web, you may find a lot of agencies that can complete your home tasks in exchange for payment. You may use this option when you don’t have enough time to work on your tasks by yourself.

As you can see, dealing with home assignments helps you significantly improve your skills with managing time. If you follow the correct guidelines, you’ll be able to complete your work in a very short period of time. To increase the effectiveness of your work, you may also go to different people for help.

Related Posts

Taking the Lead: Exploring the Benefits of an Online Masters in Athletic Administration

Affordable Excellence: Online Masters Degrees Worth Considering

How to Help Students Develop the Skills They Need to Complete Homework

Middle and high school students can learn to work more efficiently by using strategies that improve their executive function skills.

Your content has been saved!

The effects of homework are mixed. While adolescents across middle and high school have an array of life situations that can make doing homework easier or harder, it’s well known that homework magnifies inequity . However, we also know that learning how to manage time and work independently outside of the school day is valuable for lifelong learning. From the homework wars  to students who have little time for homework to students who don’t even know where to begin, everyone can agree that kids who can self-regulate and engage in independent rehearsal are better positioned for whatever the future holds.

How can we empower students to overcome barriers to doing homework well?

Executive Functioning

Homework is partially an assessment of executive functioning. Executive functioning and self-regulation take time to develop. They depend on three types of critical brain function: working memory, mental flexibility, and self-regulation .

Let’s break this down to consider how to improve their efficiency.

Working memory: Don’t hold everything in your head; it is not possible. When doing homework, students should write down their ideas, whether they are notes while reading, numbers when working through a math problem, or non-school-related reminders about chores, such as remembering to take the dog for a walk. Clearing working memory for the immediate task at hand allows the brain to focus as the strain is reduced.

Mental flexibility: As students build their independence and grow their homework routines, seeing an array of strategies, or more than one way to solve a problem, is important. Consider the results when a child gets stuck and doesn’t know what to do to get unstuck or when one keeps trying the same failed approach. Chunking homework helps simplify the process. When stuck, a student looks at a smaller piece, which makes it easier to see other solutions. More practice with mental flexibility happens when others model thinking in different ways, and students practice flexible thinking with partners by asking them: What is another way? Use this bubble map to chart out multiple ways.

Self-regulation: Learning how to prioritize work and stick with it by not giving in to impulses is a skill that students develop over time . One way to teach self-regulation is to have students practice control by concentrating for short periods of time with the goal of building up to longer, more sustained periods of time as the year progresses. For a child who struggles with reading for an extended time, start with five minutes and then build from there.

Another self-regulation tip is creating a plan to overcome distractions. What happens when the child stumbles? Three minutes into reading and a student is reaching for their cell phone. Recommend that they practice moving the cell phone away from the homework area, and summarize before returning to the reading. Stops and starts are frustrating and often result in lost homework time. Have students practice responses to distraction, and make this part of their homework. When a student struggles to stay on task, they should be encouraged to remove any distraction in order to regain focus.

Use classroom assessment as a tool to plan for and support student homework. Record the following information for students:

• Do they write, read, and/or solve problems in class? For how many minutes independently?
• What is the quality of their work? Are they actually learning, or are they just going through the motions?
• Do they know how to strategize on their own or get help from a peer when they’re stuck? Observe them and take notes, and/or have them reflect on this question.

We cannot expect that students will independently practice a skill they don’t engage with during class. If it doesn't happen in the classroom, it's not going to happen at home. The teacher should be able to realistically gauge how much and what students might achieve at home. A suggestion to build independence is to use task analysis . Here is a model . For students who struggle with getting homework done, at first they may not actually do homework; rather, they practice the routines of setting up and getting started.

Direct Instruction

The following are some techniques that help students with homework:

• Mindful meditation to gain focus
• Prioritizing and estimating time
• Filtering out distractions

Peers as Partners

Class partnership routines need practice. With strong partnerships, kids learn how to support and learn from each other. Access to teachers will never match the unlimited access to peers. The hours that students who achieve at high levels put in after class are often spent alone rehearsing the content or with peers who push each other to improve.

Class-to-Home Connection

While some students struggle with executive functioning, others rush through their homework. The most important step in having homework count is to make it seamless, not separate from class. Homework flows from classwork. Especially with a mix of synchronous and asynchronous work, now there is no homework, just work done for our classes. Consistent instructional goals with engaging and meaningful tasks help students see the value in working beyond the last bell.

• Grades 6-12
• School Leaders

Have You Seen Our List of Favorite Graphic Novels?

20 Effective Time Management Strategies and Tools for Students

Teachers can use these too!

One of the most important life skills for anyone to master is time management. Keeping track of everything that we have to do and carving out the time to get it all done can be a real struggle. Try these time management strategies and techniques, plus find helpful tools for staying on track.

General Time Management Strategies

Time management techniques, time management tools.

These time management strategies work for everyone, helping you set goals and prioritize, then set a schedule to get things done.

Visualize the big picture

Use a calendar of some type to lay out all your big-picture goals for a year, month, or week. Include major projects and assignments, as well as school and personal events. This is your place to get an overview of everything that’s on your plate. Keep items to broad descriptions: “History Project” or “Spring Play Opening Night.” You’ll get into the details next.

Break it down

The next step is to take major projects and assignments and break them down into smaller, more manageable parts. This is an incredibly effective way to overcome that feeling of “I’ll never get this all done!” It also prevents procrastinating on an entire project until the very last minute. Set smaller, more manageable goals with their own due dates in advance of a complete project or event.

For example, imagine your big-picture calendar says “History Project Due Feb. 23.” Breaking that down could look like this:

• Choose topic and presentation method: Jan. 9
• Initial research: Jan. 10-30
• Presentation outline: Jan. 31
• Write presentation script: Feb. 1-5
• Create visual aids: Feb. 6-12
• Rehearse presentation: Feb. 13
• Fine-tune presentation: Feb 14-16
• Final rehearsals: Feb. 17
• Give history presentation: Feb. 23

At first, this method might feel a little overwhelming, because it may make you feel like there’s too much to get done. But as you use it, you’ll see how it can actually make you feel more prepared and in control, and make your time easier to manage.

Determine priorities

Sometimes it’s simply true: You don’t have enough time in a day to get all the things done that you’d like to. That’s where setting priorities becomes vital. In the “Time Management Techniques” section below, you’ll find several different ideas for determining the priority of different items on your lists.

Once you’ve figured out which items are the most important, try a color-coding system to indicate which items get a higher priority. This will help you identify at a glance what you need to do now and what can wait until another day.

Make daily to-do lists

Make it a habit to start each day by creating a to-do list. (Not a morning person? You can do this the night before too.) Include high-priority items, as well as things you’d like to do but may not have to complete. Throughout the day, as you complete an item, revisit your list and check it off. It’s incredibly satisfying to cross things off, and checking in with your list a few times a day ensures you don’t forget important things. ADVERTISEMENT

Limit multitasking

Today’s world places a lot of value on multitasking (doing several things at once). But when you’re doing multiple things at the same time, you’re probably not doing any of them well. So keep your multitasking to a minimum. When it’s time to work on something, set your focus to that particular thing. Other stuff can wait.

But some multitasking is OK. For instance, you might throw your clothes in the washing machine, then work on your math homework while waiting for them to be ready for the dryer. Later on, you could fold and put away the laundry while practicing conjugating Spanish verbs out loud. This type of multitasking works because the physical tasks are ones that don’t require much concentration, leaving your brain free for academic subjects.

On the other hand, avoid something like trying to listen to a podcast for your history class while also doing your math homework. Your attention won’t be fully on each, and your learning will suffer.

Remove distractions

Some people are capable of deep focus no matter what’s going on around them. Most of us, though, need to find ways to remove distractions when it’s time to get down to work. Here are some examples to try:

• Turn off your phone, or set it to alert you only in case of emergencies.
• Wear noise-cancelling headphones or earplugs to block out distracting sounds. A white-noise machine or app can help with this too.
• Close miscellaneous tabs in your web browser (like social media or news sites), and use only the tabs you need for your work.
• Go into a quiet room and shut the door. Ask friends and family not to disturb you.
• Check your to-do list before you start to make sure you’re on track. Then, clear your mind of other projects or tasks, and focus on what’s at hand.

Do an end-of-day review

At the end of each day, sit down with your to-do list. Was there anything you didn’t get to? Move it to another day. Did you feel too rushed today? Think about how you might make tomorrow run a bit more smoothly. Where do you stand in terms of your big-picture goals? Take a few minutes to adjust any plans accordingly.

Try a time audit

It’s OK if you don’t get to everything on your list every day. But if you find that there’s never enough time to get things done, you might benefit from a time audit. Over the period of a week or two, write down exactly how you spend your time, hour by hour. Then, look it over and see if you can identify problem areas. You might need to cut down on some optional activities and give that time to high-priority items instead. Learn how to do a time audit here.

The time management strategies we’ve talked about so far are general ways to stay on track and get stuff done. But there are multiple ways to approach some of these strategies, especially when it comes to actually settling down to work. Check out these popular time management techniques and choose one or more that seem right for you.

Eisenhower Decision Matrix

President Eisenhower developed this matrix and used it to help him prioritize his tasks. He looked at each item to evaluate it by importance and urgency, then broke them into four categories:

• Do First: These are urgent, important tasks with high priority.
• Schedule: These are important tasks that aren’t quite as urgent.
• Delegate: You may be able to delegate less important but still urgent tasks to someone else.
• Don’t Do: These non-urgent, unimportant items can be eliminated entirely or postponed indefinitely.

Here are some possible student examples for each category:

• Do First: Homework that’s due tomorrow takes top priority, as might doing laundry if you’re out of clean clothes.
• Schedule: Set aside time (see Time Blocking) for smaller parts of long-term projects, such as research time or writing an outline. That could be today or one day in the near future.
• Delegate: Students aren’t always able to delegate their tasks, but they can ask for help. For example, if your schedule is incredibly tight, you could ask your dad if he’d be willing to throw your clothes in the dryer when the washer is done.
• Don’t Do: These are often bad habits you need to break, like surfing the web aimlessly instead of working, or texting your friends for hours instead of doing your chores.

Find out much more about the Eisenhower Matrix and how to use it for time management strategies here.

ABCDE Method

This is another time management strategy for prioritizing the tasks at hand. Assign each item a letter:

• A: Highest priority
• B: Should do soon, if not today
• C: Could do, but no serious consequences if not done
• D: Delegate or ask for help
• E: Eliminate from your list

This is very similar to the Eisenhower Matrix, with a little more flexibility around should-dos and could-dos. Learn more about the ABCDE method here.

Most Difficult First (Eat That Frog)

This method is based on a quote often attributed to Mark Twain: “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

In other words, don’t put off the biggest, hardest tasks. Get them out of the way first. Then, everything else you have to do will seem easy in comparison.

For some people, though, this concept can be counterproductive. If you’re already feeling overwhelmed, tackling something extremely difficult can be too much and cause you to shut down entirely. In that case, it’s just fine to choose smaller, simpler items. The key is to make progress, one step at a time.

Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a simple time management method: You work for 25 minutes at a time, then take a 5-minute break to rest and recharge. Simply set a timer for 25 minutes, and focus on one single task until it goes off. Then, you can spend 5 minutes stretching, resting your eyes, or checking your social media feeds. When the 5 minutes are up, set the timer for another 25 minutes, and get back to work. If you do four 25-minute sessions in a row, take a longer break afterwards. Learn more about the Pomodoro Technique here.

If 25 minutes seems too short and you’d like a little more uninterrupted time, try Flowtime instead. This stretches out both the work and break time proportionally. If you work for 25-50 minutes, take an 8-minute break. For 50-90 minutes, you get a 10-minute break. And if you’ve been at it for more than 90 minutes, take 15 minutes to recharge. Learn about Flowtime here.

Parkinson’s Law says that work will always expand to fill the amount of time available. Timeboxing seeks to shrink tasks back to the size they truly need to be. When you timebox, you set a specific amount of time for a task and complete it within that time.

In other words, you might look over your study planner and decide that you need one hour for tonight’s geometry and chemistry assignments, plus you’d like to spend another hour working on your English essay.

Set a timer and work on your geometry and chemistry for an hour, with no other distractions. When the timer goes off, reassess and adjust your goals as needed. Since you have to finish that homework tonight, you’ll probably need to add more time if you’re not finished.

Your English essay isn’t due for two weeks, though, so if you’ve boxed out one hour for working on it today, that’s all you need to do. Set a timer, determine your goals for day, and get to work. When the timer goes off, you’re done for today.

Here’s more on timeboxing.

Time Blocking

This method is similar to timeboxing, but it involves setting blocks of time aside on your calendar for specific tasks. For example, you might block out 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. each day for daily homework, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. for working on your biology research paper, and 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. for piano practice. Some people like to start each day by blocking time out on their calendar, figuring out how they’ll make the most of their time. Find out more about time blocking here.

Once you’ve selected some time management strategies to try, you’ll find plenty of tools to help make them work. Check out these top time management tools for students, from planners to timers and beyond.

Student Planners

Traditional paper planners come in a variety of styles, with some made especially for students. The most important thing is to choose one you’ll actually use, and keep it on hand at all times. See our selection of the top student planners here.

Planner Apps

Planner apps and online calendars are nice because you have access to them everywhere you go. For students, we really like:

• My Study Life

See more details on each of these here, plus more options.

Study Planners

Study planners are specific to academics, and they are a simple way to keep track of both short-term and long-term assignments, projects, and more. Check out these free printable options:

• Develop Good Habits: Study Planner
• Alex Marie: Weekly Assignments Due
• Sophia Lee: Homework Planner Pack

Time Management Apps

Planner apps are a good start, but other time management apps can help you stay on track by eliminating distractions or setting time limits. Here are a few to try:

• Pomofocus : A free online 25–5 timer with the ability to add a task list for each work segment
• Rize : An AI productivity coach that uses time tracking to improve your focus and build better work habits
• Forest : Eliminate distractions, stay on task, and grow a digital forest to celebrate your achievements

Bullet Journal

Bullet journaling has a lot of benefits, and some page setups are especially good for time management:

• Daily Schedule
• Project Planner
• Study Tracker

Check out our big roundup of bullet journal ideas here.

What time management strategies do your students find most effective? Come share your thoughts and ask for advice in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook .

Plus, ultimate study skills guide: tips, tricks, and strategies for every grade ..

You Might Also Like

42 Important Life Skills for Teens

Why not help your kids build these skills while they’re still at home? Continue Reading

Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. 5335 Gate Parkway, Jacksonville, FL 32256

How My Homework Helped Me With Time Management

Students often find themselves struggling with time management as they get older. This article will explore how homework can help students learn to be more responsible for their time, organize their workloads, and plan their days better.

Table of Contents

Introduction

As a student, you probably know the importance of time management. After all, there are only so many hours in a day, and you must use them wisely. Homework can help you to develop good time management skills.

When you have homework, you must plan your time carefully to complete it. This means you have to be very organized and efficient with your time. You can’t just start working on your homework whenever you feel like it; you need to sit down and figure out when and how long you will work on it. This can be tricky, especially if you have other commitments like sports or extracurricular activities.

However, managing your time and completing your homework efficiently will free up more time for other things. And, as a bonus, your grades will probably improve too! So, doing homework can be helpful if you’re struggling with time management.

What is Time Management?

Time management is the ability to use your time wisely to accomplish more daily. It involves setting priorities and ensuring you use your time wisely by first working on the most critical tasks.

Homework can help you with time management because it forces you to prioritize your work and use your time efficiently. If you have a lot of homework, you need to be able to figure out what is most important and work on that first. This can be an excellent skill to practice to learn how to manage your time better.

In addition, homework can help you learn how to budget your time. You may have limited time to complete your homework, so you must be careful about how you spend that time. This can teach you how to be more efficient with your time, which is a valuable skill.

How Homework Helps with Time Management

Homework can help students learn essential time management skills in academic and real-world settings. By teaching students how to budget their time and break down larger tasks into smaller, more manageable steps, homework can help them develop the time management skills they need to succeed in school and their future careers.

In addition to learning essential time management skills, homework can help students develop other vital skills such as organization, prioritization, and task completion. These skills are often transferable to other areas of life, allowing students to better manage their time inside and outside the classroom.

While some students may find homework a burden, when used correctly, it can be an invaluable tool for helping them develop the time management skills they need to succeed.

Tips to Improve Your Time Management Skills

If you struggle to complete your homework on time, it may be time to start thinking about improving your time management skills. Here are a few tips that can help:

1. Make a list of all the tasks you must complete, including homework and other commitments. This will help you to see exactly what needs to be done and plan your time accordingly.

2. Try to set aside a specific time each day for homework. This will ensure you have enough time to focus on and complete the task correctly.

3. If possible, break up your homework into smaller tasks that can be completed over time. This can make the overall job seem less daunting and make it easier to stay on track.

4. Use any spare moments during the day to work on your homework. Even if it’s just for 5 minutes, every little bit helps!

5. Seek help from others if you find the task challenging. Sometimes another person’s perspective can help get the job done efficiently.

My Personal Experience

I remember when I was first assigned homework in school. I thought it was the most pointless thing ever. Why did I have to do more work when I was already doing it all day at school? But as I got older and my workload increased, I started to see the value in homework. It taught me how to manage my time better and get work done even when I didn’t feel like it.

Now that I’m in college, managing my time is more critical than ever. There’s a lot on my plate with classes, extracurriculars, and a part-time job. But I can juggle everything without feeling overwhelmed because of the skills I learned from doing homework.

Homework may not have been fun when I was younger, but it’s helped me in the long run. If you’re struggling with time management, don’t be afraid to ask for help from your parents or teachers. They’ve been through it before and can offer some valuable advice.

Overall, doing my homework helped me improve my time management. By juggling different assignments and deadlines, I was forced to learn how to prioritize and use my time more efficiently. This skill has been incredibly helpful in school and my personal life. If you’re struggling with time management, I recommend trying homework!

Share this:

Celebrating 150 years of Harvard Summer School. Learn about our history.

8 Time Management Tips for Students

Don't let a hectic schedule get the better of you with these time management tips.

Lian Parsons

College can be a stressful time for many students and time management can be one of the most crucial — but tricky — skills to master.

Attending classes, studying for exams, making friends, and taking time to relax and decompress can quickly fill up your schedule. If you often find yourself wishing there were more hours in the day, this guide will offer time management tips for students so you can accomplish what you need to get done, have fun with your friends, and gain back some valuable time for yourself. 

1. Create a Calendar

Don’t be caught by surprise by an important paper due two days from now or a dinner with your family the same night you planned for a group study session. Create a calendar for yourself with all your upcoming deadlines, exams, social events, and other time commitments well in advance so you can see what’s coming up. 

Keep your calendar in a place where you can see it every day, such as in your planner or on your wall above your desk. If you prefer a digital calendar, check it first thing every day to keep those important events fresh and top-of-mind. For greater efficiency, make sure you can integrate it with your other tools, such as your email.

Digital calendar options include: 

• Google Calendar 
• Outlook Calendar
• Fantastical

2. Set Reminders

After you’ve created your calendar, give yourself periodic reminders to stay on track such as to complete a study guide in advance or schedule a meeting for a group project. Knowing deadlines is important; however, staying on top of the micro tasks involved in meeting those deadlines is just as important. You can set an alarm on your phone, write it down in a physical planner, or add an alert to your digital calendar. The reminders will help to prevent things from slipping through the cracks during particularly hectic days.

Make sure you’ve allotted enough time to study for that big test or write that final paper. Time management is all about setting yourself up for success in advance and giving yourself the tools to accomplish tasks with confidence. 

Read our blogs, Your Guide to Conquering College Coursework and Top 10 Study Tips to Study Like a Harvard Student , for more suggestions.

3. Build a Personalized Schedule

Each person’s day-to-day is different and unique to them, so make sure your schedule works for you. Once you’ve accounted for consistent commitments such as classes or your shifts at work, add in study sessions, extracurriculars, chores and errands, and social engagements.

Consider your personal rhythm. If you typically start your day energized, plan to study or accomplish chores then. If you fall into an afternoon slump, give yourself that time to take a guilt-free TV break or see friends.

Having a schedule that works for you will help maximize your time. Plus, knowing exactly when your laundry day is or when your intramural volleyball practice is every week will help you avoid trying to cram everything in one day (or running out of clean socks!)

Explore summer college courses.

4. Use Tools That Work For You

Just like your calendar and schedule, the tools you use to keep you organized should be the right fit for you. Some students prefer physical planners and paper, while some prefer going totally digital. Your calendar can help you with long-term planning, but most of these tools are best for prioritizing from day to day.

Explore what best suits your needs with some of the following suggestions:

Planners can help you keep track of long-term deadlines, such as important essay deadlines, upcoming exams, and appointments and meetings. They often provide a monthly overview each month, as well as day-to-day planning sections, so you can stay ahead. 

• Papier – Offers a 20% student discount 

If your schedule is jam-packed and you have trouble figuring out what to do and when, scheduling day by day—and sometimes even hour by hour—can help you slot in everything you need to do with less stress.

• Structured app

Note Taking

From class to study sessions to errands, keeping track of everything can feel overwhelming. Keeping everything in one place, whether on the go or at your desk, can help keep you organized.

• Bullet journals

5. Prioritize

Sometimes there really is too much to do with too little time. In these instances, take just a few minutes to evaluate your priorities. Consider which deadlines are most urgent, as well as how much energy you have. 

If you are able to complete simple tasks first, try getting them out of the way before moving on to tasks that require a lot of focus. This can help to alleviate some of the pressure by checking a couple things off your to-do list without getting bogged down too early.

If you are struggling to fit everything in your schedule, consider what you can postpone or what you can simply say no to. Your friends will likely understand if you have to meet them for coffee another time in order to get in a final library session before a challenging exam. 

6. Make Time to Have Fun — And For Yourself

Time management isn’t just about getting work done. It’s also about ensuring that you can put yourself and your mental wellbeing first. Consistently including time for yourself in your schedule helps to keep your mental health and your life in balance. It can also be helpful to have things to look forward to when going through stressful periods.  

Whether it’s going for a bike ride along the river, spending time with your friends and family, or simply sleeping in on a Sunday, knowing you have space to relax and do things you enjoy can provide better peace of mind. 

7. Find Support 

Preparation and organization can sometimes only get you so far. Luckily, you have plenty of people rooting for your success. Keep yourself and your classmates on task by finding an accountability partner or study buddies. Remind your roommates when you need extra space to work on a paper. 

Your school’s academic resource center is also there to support you and point you in the right direction if you need additional help. Getting—and staying—organized is a collaborative effort and no one can do it on their own. 

8. Be Realistic and Flexible 

Sometimes unforeseen circumstances will come up or you simply may not be able to get to everything you set out to do in a given day. Be patient with yourself when things don’t go exactly to plan. When building your calendar, schedule, and priorities list, be realistic about what you can accomplish and include buffer time if you’re unsure. This can help to reduce obstacles and potential friction.

Time management isn’t just about sticking to a rigid schedule—it’s also about giving yourself space for change.

Learn more about our summer programs.

About the Author

Lian Parsons is a Boston-based writer and journalist. She is currently a digital content producer at Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education. Her bylines can be found at the Harvard Gazette, Boston Art Review, Radcliffe Magazine, Experience Magazine, and iPondr.

Managing Stress in High School

Our reasons may vary, but everyone experiences stress. Here are some of the common reasons high school students feel stressed, and what they can do about it.

Harvard Division of Continuing Education

The Division of Continuing Education (DCE) at Harvard University is dedicated to bringing rigorous academics and innovative teaching capabilities to those seeking to improve their lives through education. We make Harvard education accessible to lifelong learners from high school to retirement.

• Book Lists by Age
• Book Lists by Category
• Reading Resources
• Language & Speech
• Raise a Reader Blog
• Back to School
• Success Guides by Grade
• Homework Help
• Social & Emotional Learning
• Activities for Kids

The Age-by-Age Guide to Teaching Kids Time Management

Use these tips to help your child discover how to plan and prioritize her time..

Many kids are overwhelmed by the prospect of fitting everything they have and want to do into the few short hours after school. Between homework, activities, and just time to play, there’s a lot to do. But even though most kids don’t have the cognitive skills to organize their schedules independently until middle school, you can start teaching them how to plan and prioritize their time now. “When we teach children strategies for time management from an early age, they internalize them, which sets them up for lifelong success,” says Lynn Meltzer, Ph.D., president of the Research Institute for Learning and Development , a nonprofit research and educational organization.

Wondering how the heck to begin? No worries. Teachers shared their tips on the essential concepts and lessons to teach, age by age, so you can make this school year’s schedule more manageable, successful, and a whole lot more fun for everyone! 

Time Management Tips for Preschoolers

For 3- and 4-year-olds, time is essentially divided into now, and not now. But that’s enough to help them figure out how to predict and plan what comes next. To reinforce that knowledge:

• Talk about the changing seasons. All those leaf prints (and later in the year, snowflakes) on display in almost every preschool classroom aren’t coincidental, says Stephanie Lampert, a pre-K teacher from Atlanta. The seasons are a primary vehicle for introducing the cyclical nature of time. “It’s an extremely abstract concept,” she says, “and preschoolers are extremely concrete thinkers. By observing a tree over the seasons, for example, kids can see the progression: The green leaves of summer turn red, then brown, and eventually fall off the tree before coming back to life again in the spring. This is a tangible representation of the passage of time that little ones can understand.” How does that help with time management? By observing the patterns in nature and in their daily lives, little kids intuitively grasp the concept of time — and how to create order. Reinforce those lessons by having your child sort family photos by seasons, for instance. Or point out patterns in nature when you go for a walk.
• Create a (picture) schedule. “As adults, we use apps and calendars to remind us what we should be doing and when. In the preschool world, we use pictures — like an apple for snacktime and a book for storytime,” says Ellen Dietrick, a Needham, MA, preschool director whose classrooms are dotted with visual cues to keep her young charges on track. So while these 3- and 4-year-olds can’t tell you the exact hour they have snacks, they know it comes after circle time and before the bathroom break. “It gives them a comforting sense of order and predictability,” Dietrick says. Since little kids love routines and repetition so much, create charts of your child’s morning and bedtime rituals. Then have your child check off the steps as he does them — an important lesson in breaking up a bigger chore into smaller, more manageable ones. Try these nine ways to make choretime fun , too. 
• Practice waiting. “Time management, at its most basic level, is the ability to delay gratification,” a skill linked to better study habits and grades, among other things, says Dietrick. To strengthen time management, Dietrick devises situations that require her students to wait for something they want. “If they clamor for pajama day, for example, we schedule it for a week away, rather than the following day,” she explains. “We mark the days off on the calendar and build up the excitement as the event gets closer. This gives them a sense of what it feels like to postpone something — and a positive experience to associate with it.” Try something similar with outings and birthdays: Begin talking up that trip to the zoo a few days beforehand, for instance, or tell your child to keep a running birthday wish list. Even planting a bulb, watering it, and watching it slowly bloom teaches the art of patience.

Time Management Tips for Children in Grades K to 2

As kids move through these early grades, they’re learning to read calendars and clocks. Those are the basics they need to stick to a schedule. To reinforce the skill:

• Find a place for everything. “A kid can’t finish his morning work if he can’t find his pencil. So organization has to come before time management,” notes Staci Carper, a first-grade teacher from Marietta, GA. To motivate her students, Carper created Deskalina, a cousin of the tooth fairy, who looks for clean and orderly desks and leaves a note, a prize, or a piece of candy when she finds one. When Deskalina starts flitting about, the desks in Carper’s classroom suddenly become tidy. Carper also sets up clear routines, like a “Keep Here” folder for unfinished schoolwork and a “Take Home” one for homework. To encourage your child to keep her homework supplies (or room) organized, invent your own mythical being to bestow treats and notes. An easy-to-spot weekly checklist (“Homework in backpack? Reading log signed?”) will also go a long way in keeping your kid on top of things.
• Use a visual timer. To help her first graders comprehend how much time is left to complete a task, Carper displays a pie-like visual timer on her Smartboard. When she sets it for 15 minutes, for example, one-quarter of the “pie” turns green. As the seconds tick away, the slice becomes smaller, and when there are only five minutes left, the slice turns red. Seeing time literally slipping away can help kids pace themselves, she explains. You don’t have to be a teacher to score a visual timer — apps like Children’s Countdown (for younger kids) and Time Timer  fit the bill just as well. So do old-school egg and sand timers. Use any during homework sessions. If you have a second grader, for instance, set the timer for 20 or 25 minutes. Give your child a star each night he finishes before the buzzer, and reward a week’s worth of stars with a special treat over the weekend (like a one-on-one walk to the park with you). The goal is to help kids tackle their assignments more effectively and efficiently, while making them more aware of the ticking clock, Carper says.
• Be clear about consequences. “Grade-schoolers can and should be held accountable for their own assignments and they need to feel the consequences when they drop the ball,” says Joan Greenfield, a second-grade teacher from West Hartford, CT. Sometimes those results happen naturally (i.e., if she doesn’t study her spelling words, she probably won’t do well on the test); other times an adult has to set the ramifications. Every Friday, for example, Greenfield has something called Choice Time, when students get to choose what they want to play with, from board games to Legos to computers. “My students live for Choice Time. But our class rule is that they only get to participate if they’ve completed all the assignments in their classwork folders.” The valuable lesson kids get? “Good things happen when I work hard and manage my time and missing them is what happens when I don’t,” Greenfield explains. Your child has a better shot at absorbing this lesson if you resist the urge to email an excuse to the teacher every time she fails to turn in her homework, says Greenfield. Instead, give your kid the onus of explaining to the teacher what went wrong, and how she plans to avoid the problem next time. Discover more do's and don't for helping your child with homework . 

Time Management for Children in Grades 3 to 5

Homework and extracurriculars increase at this age so it’s even more important that kids learn how to set goals, prioritize, organize, and think flexibly, says Dr. Meltzer. Your goal: To get your child to manage his time more purposefully, without a lot of nagging and hovering. How to accomplish this:

• Work on estimating time. “In order to make a realistic schedule, you need a good sense of how long things take,” says Marcia Grosswald, an upper-elementary resource teacher in Summit, NJ. To teach this vital skill, Grosswald has her students spend a few minutes at the end of the day planning their after-school hours. “I give them a chart that breaks the afternoon and evening hours into 15-minute intervals,” she explains. “Each time slot is followed by three columns: what kids plans to do, what they actually did, and reflection.” The reflection piece is essential, Grosswald says, because constantly reassessing how things are going helps a kid adapt his schedule accordingly: Last time I had a soccer game at 5 p.m., I had tough time concentrating on my homework afterward. This time, I’m going to do my hardest assignments before practice.  If your child’s teacher doesn’t do this, do it yourself at home. Make a chart, have your child fill out the first column himself, and then fill out the last two items together, discussing what went according to plan — and what your child can do about the things that went awry.
• Plan for long-term assignments. Deciding when to do tonight’s math assignment is one thing. Figuring out how and when to tackle the book report diorama that’s due three weeks from Tuesday is quite another.  “The key with long-range projects is to break them down into smaller steps — reading the book, for instance, or shopping for materials — and then break those tasks down into even smaller nightly assignments, like reading chapters one to three,” says Amy Broocke, who coordinates a tutoring program at her school in Richmond, VA. She also suggests your child use sticky notes when she’s adding tasks to the calendar; that way, the note can easily be moved to another day if the assignment takes longer than expected. Your child can also plan the steps necessary to complete a project by working backward from the due date, suggests Grosswald. Talk through the process together so the assignment feels less overwhelming: You probably need a day to shop for materials and three days to do the diorama. That leaves you with 10 days to finish the book. It’s 150 pages long so you need to read 15 pages a day. Here's how to create a stress-free study space . 
• Set priorities. “It’s essential kids learn to differentiate between ‘have tos’ and ‘want tos’ and learn to prioritize and self-monitor,” says Meltzer. To help her class do that, Grosswald uses a rock, pebble, and water analogy. The rocks and pebbles represent the students’ duties, she explains, with the rocks signifying their most essential tasks (like school, homework, and sleep) and the pebbles representing their extracurricular commitments. The water stands in for want-to-dos, like video games and hanging out with friends. “I use a jar to represent a day,” she says. “The rocks go in first because they are things you have to do whether you like it or not. Next come the pebbles. But there’s still some room in the jar, so we pour water until our jar — and the day is full.” If you do the rock jar at home, as I did, you’ll have a chance to chat with your kid about her goals, priorities and passions. Don’t be afraid to make changes if you notice the balance is a bit out of whack. After our conversation, we decided Emma would kick off the school year with fewer extracurricular pebbles crammed between the rocks — and a lot more of that refreshing water known as chill time.

Photo credit: 101cats/iStockphoto

Do Your Homework Faster and Better: Time Management Tips for Students

• By Emily Summers
• October 15, 2019

Homework can be boring and tedious, but it’s still a necessary part of any student’s life. In fact, researchers have found that the right amount of homework can greatly improve a student’s future academic performance, all the way until they reach college.

While it might just seem like extra work, homework actually gives you an opportunity to develop a valuable life skill: time management.

The Best Way To Do Homework Quickly and Efficiently

Create a master schedule and stick with it, leave your distractions behind, start early, break down your tasks into manageable goals, work on one task at a time, use the pomodoro technique, get a good night’s sleep.

By far, perfecting time management skills is the best way to do homework efficiently and quickly. Not only does it give you the opportunity to do work faster, it also gives you the opportunity to schedule more activities in a single day, whether it’s extra-curricular activities, hanging out with friends, bonding with family, or simply to distress with videogames or music.

Time management teaches students how to prioritize tasks and plan out their work ahead of time. This lets them manage their schedule and use their time better while maintaining accuracy with their work. Time management helps students avoid procrastinating, lessens their stress, and gives them a small sense of accomplishment for every task they complete.

Especially for high school students, perfecting their time management skills will not only help them with homework, it will also help them prepare for college, and eventually, employment. A person with a highly developed time management skill is one of the most valuable people that employers look for.

Learning how to manage your time efficiently doesn’t just mean students get to do their homework faster and better; it also gives them a chance to de-stress, knowing that they were able to complete what they needed to complete in a given amount of time, which in turn, gives them more free time to simply relax and decompress.

So how can students do homework efficiently and quickly? We’ve come up with a list of ways for students to get their homework done quickly but accurately and with enough time to do their extra-curricular activities.

The first step of time management is creating a master schedule that lets you block off time in various increments for homework, projects, and other activities. This will teach you how to prioritize your work and provide you a time management structure to follow.

To make it easier, create an excel sheet with different time blocks (make it easy to read as well). Use visual aids in your schedule: use a specific color for each subject or activity so it’s easy to keep track of what you’re supposed to be doing and when.

Now that you’ve laid out your schedule, you must stick with it. To make it easier to stick to your schedule, give yourself time in between tasks to rest and de-stress. Don’t be tempted to pack in as much activities as possible; remember, you need rest too, which means you need to figure out which tasks are more important so that you can prioritize them better.

Technology has made it easier to access information, but it’s also given us tons of distractions, whether it’s interacting with friends on social media, watching hours of streaming videos, or just browsing one meme after another. And with smartphones notifying us about pretty much everything, the constant ‘ping’ becomes almost like a Pavlovian response: hear notification, be distracted.

This is why it’s important to leave all distractions behind while you’re working on homework or on a project: no phones, no screens, and only connect to the internet to do actual work. Remember: there’s a time and place for your memes and your social media posts, so keep that kind of activity where it belongs.

Proper time management skills can help students avoid cramming by spacing out your homework or project responsibilities throughout the day, week, or even month. This will allow you to get a head start on work without feeling the need to procrastinate.

If you schedule it properly, your homework and project stuff will take up a very small portion of your day, and if you stick with that schedule, you’ll be done long before anything is due, which means more time to do what you want!

Speaking of starting early, as much as possible, it’s best to get homework done in the morning , especially during the weekends. Yes, no one likes doing schoolwork on their day off, but think of it this way: the earlier you start, the earlier you can finish, the less you have to worry about on Sunday. If you have a master schedule in place, this should make it easier.

Good teachers won’t give their students more work than they can handle; that being said, even a moderate amount of work will seem like a series of insurmountable challenges that’s too much to handle for anyone.

Of course, that’s just what it looks like. In reality, most of your homework will be more than manageable, if you approach it properly. Rather than taking on all of your work and just shoving it into your schedule, break down each large task into smaller, more manageable tasks . For each small task, set a goal or a series of goals that are easy to reach. This is the best way to get homework done fast without compromising on quality.

Being overwhelmed by too much is one of the leading causes of procrastination amongst students (and even some professionals!), so have a project plan in hand. A project plan can be as basic as a series of bullet points about how you want to break down your tasks and how you’ll approach it. Not only does this make it easier for you to complete huge amounts of work in no time, it also encourages you to plan out early, which in turn helps you start early, and which, in turn, will help you finish early!

Speaking of manageable tasks, just because you’ve broken your homework down into multiple smaller, easier chunks doesn’t mean that you have to do all of them at the same time. While many people claim to be great ‘multi-taskers’ or that many companies look for people who are great at multi-tasking, the science behind it is solid: multi-tasking simply doesn’t work .

Researchers found that people who multi-task aren’t actually doing multiple things at the same time; what’s actually happening is switching between tasks quickly, albeit with a reduced degree of accuracy. Don’t be tempted to do the same: stick to your schedule and do one task at a time. Give each task, no matter how small, your complete and undivided attention. Yes, you’re trying to do your homework as quickly as possible, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of doing it correctly.

The Pomodoro technique is a time management system introduced by corporate consultant Franceso Cirillo in the late 80’s. In Cirillo’s system, schedules are broken down into 25 minutes of work (called a Pomodoro), followed by a 3 to 5 minute period of rest. After 4 Pomodoro’s (100 minutes, or 1 hour and 40 minutes), you get a longer break of around 15 to 30 minutes.

This system was designed to keep your brain constantly fresh. Science shows that after just a couple of hours of work, most people will exhaust their brain’s ability to process information effectively. By using the Pomodoro technique, you’ll be able to get work done without feeling too stressed or fatigued, which means you’re able to process information faster and better, which leads to you doing your homework done faster and better too.

Finally, always make sure that you get plenty of rest the night before. Especially for kids in their formative years, their brains need at least 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night. This keeps their brain at optimal performance and prevents them from ‘burn out’: that is, over-fatiguing them to the point that they’re demotivated and unable to process information as well as they should.

In fact, researchers found that instances of depression and anxiety disorders rise significantly in direct proportion to how little sleep a teen gets. The more sleep they get, however, and the better their chances of performing well in school and less likelihood of developing some kind of mood disorder.

This is why a master schedule is so important: if you’re able to put all your tasks into a schedule and you’re able to follow that schedule, you’ll be able to get 8 to 10 hours of sleep easily. This helps you do your homework faster and better, while keeping your stress levels to a minimum.

About the Author

Emily summers.

Reasons You Should Learn French Now

10 Careers to Pursue After High School if Youre a People Person

How Summer Camp Fosters Social Skills

6 reasons to read to your child regularly at home

Is the D Important in Pharmacy? Why Pharm.D or RPh Degrees Shouldn’t Matter

How to Email a Professor: Guide on How to Start and End an Email Conversation

Everything You Need to Know About Getting a Post-Secondary Education

Grammar Corner: What’s The Difference Between Analysis vs Analyses?

Time Management

Kids can't learn time management without time to manage, overloading kids with structure and demands undermines learning time management..

Posted April 3, 2017

• What Is Time Management?
• Take our Procrastination Test
• Find a therapist near me

Time management is a skill that can and should be acquired, in a developmentally appropriate way, across nearly all grade levels. It becomes a critically important ability that can not only support academic growth but also help reduce anxiety . As such, teaching time management strategies in school is an important component to any curriculum.

But there's a problem these days. While we may offer kids a variety of tools and suggestions for managing their time, we keep taking away so much of their time that there is really no room for them to manage it in a meaningful way. Consider the work done by the Challenge Success research program at Stanford's Graduate School of Education . While they suggest that kids (of all ages) should have a good amount of downtime every day— part of the Challenge Success "PDF" mantra (playtime, downtime, family time) —the reality is that many students today go from school to activities to homework with substantial reductions in daily downtime. Beyond the downside of not having sufficient discretionary time to recharge, another consequence is that there is so little room in the modern day student's schedule that "time management" becomes an exercise in either compressing homework (and studying and projects) into a finite and blocked period of time, or sacrificing sleep (another topic for another day and a reality for many students).

There are two issues to consider that don't get enough attention in educational circles.

First, we may sometimes set up the conditions for inducing learned helplessness by telling kids that they need to manage their time better when we usurp their time; it's like giving them an unsolvable equation and demanding that they come up with a solution. How are kids supposed to "manage" increasing workloads with decreasing time using the time management skills we give them? So kids are not only being deprived of the opportunity to try out and refine time management skills, they are also being told that they are not doing something well when they don't really have a shot at pulling it off.

Second, kids often hear that they aren't managing their time well because they either "waste" time on downtime activities (e.g., social media , streaming shows, music, whatever) or decrease their productivity by combining downtime with academic time (e.g., making homework take much longer than it should). Let's be real here. Kids should have downtime to do whatever they want to do; they need to relax, they need to socialize, they need to have their own interests and amusements. They have also, each day, put in a full day's work at school already—not to mention whatever extracurriculars they are pursuing—and by nighttime are a little bit spent. Their brains and bodies are craving that downtime, not overtime in terms of academics. So whether they crash by claiming downtime or squeezing downtime into school work, they are doing what is developmentally appropriate, which amounts to having to make decisions about their retracted time rather than managing it. To be clear, if a child has six hours available after school and extracurriculars (say from 4pm to 10pm), and need to do 30 minutes of homework along with spending say another 15-20 minutes getting a head start on something due in the near future, and can't get that done, then yes, time management skills would be helpful. But if that child has four hours available (say from 6pm to 10pm), and has three hours of school work to do, and is pretty spent after putting in say an 11 hour day... Then how exactly do we want them to manage the unmanageable? Remember, it's not just about the reduced time, it's also about draining the fuel in kid's daily tanks and expecting them to be at peak productivity while running on fumes. That is not a scenario that is conducive for applying time management tools.

So what do we do about all this? While there are no easy solutions, awareness of these issues—which are not always brought to the surface in schools—is a place to start. We need to recognize that kids should have "PDF" time every day. As such, revisiting homework practices is a good place to start, both philosophically and practically. If schools offer many extracurricular activities, it would be profitable to do a time audit and reflect on both the amount of time required along with where the time falls in the daily schedule (e.g., if a kid is going to play basketball and needs to block from 4 P.M. to 7 P.M., it's not a great strategy to tell this child that they have from 3 P.M. to 4 P.M. to do homework, since they just spent something like seven hours in school). And parents should be looped into the process, both in terms of understanding their role in promoting "more is more" messages to kids and to be on board with potential changes in homework and the like.

The point of all this is not to abandon the concept of doing academic work outside of school, or eliminate extracurricular activities. The goal is to develop an awareness that the time needed to learn how to manage time can be usurped, so that all the forces in play can be re-calibrated so kids can have a chance to put all their time management tips into practice.

Richard Rende, Ph.D. , is the founder and director of Social Behavioral Research Applications, and the co-author of Raising Can-Do Kids: Giving Children the Tools to Thrive in a Fast-Changing World .

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

It’s increasingly common for someone to be diagnosed with a condition such as ADHD or autism as an adult. A diagnosis often brings relief, but it can also come with as many questions as answers.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

• Ask A Question
• Change Location

10 Ways To Improve Time Management For Students

• January 11, 2018
• Enrichment , Homework , Studying

Learning how to manage time effectively is an important skill for students to master.

But many students struggle with finding the time to complete all their assignments, leading to overwhelming feelings of stress and frustration.

To help, we’ve created a list of time management strategies for students of all ages to help students (and their parents) put the days of last-minute project panic and school stress behind them.

Why Is Time Management Important For Students?

Good time management skills help students prioritize tasks so they are able to complete school work and assignments on time. Students are able to plan ahead, set aside the time they need for projects and assignments, and make better use of that time.

Becoming better at managing time allows students to become more organized, more confident, and learn more effectively. It can also help students avoid the dreaded procrastination problem , which can be a slippery slope to stress, frustration, and poor grades.

Effective time management skills are especially important for high school students. As students enter high school, they have to deal with more subjects, assignments, tests, and extracurriculars. Good time management skills can help keep them on track and reduce stress as they take on more work.

So how can you help your child learn to manage time more effectively?

Check out these time management tips and learn how your student can start being more productive.

10 Effective Time Management Tips For Students

1. Create a Master Schedule Make a master schedule your child can use to block off time to work on his or her assignments. This will help your child prioritize projects and provide a structure to help keep him or her on track to meet due dates. Use a different color for each subject so your child can follow the schedule quickly and easily. Download your own master schedule here:

Download the Printable Version Here!

2. Use an Agenda

Help your child look ahead to all upcoming assignments and record the due dates in an agenda. Use the agenda to schedule in TV and computer time too—this will help your child avoid falling into a trap of wasted hours in front of a screen instead of working on assignments.

3. Eliminate Distractions

Between cell phones, social media, and friends, there are a lot of activities that can distract students from their school work. When it’s time to get down to work, have your child turn off his or her cell phone and sign out of social media accounts. Any time on the master schedule that is dedicated to working on school work should be cell phone and television-free!

Find more tips on how to focus on homework .

4. Set Goals For Each Study Session

Help your child set specific goals for each day, like how many pages of a book report to write or how many math questions to complete. The agenda and master schedule will help with planning your child’s daily goals so assignments can be completed on time.

5. Start Working On Assignments Early

Good time management skills mean not leaving assignments until the day before they are due. Sit down with your child each week to review upcoming assignments and tests and add them to his or her master schedule and agenda. Schedule time to start working on them well before they are due so your child isn’t stressed and scrambling to meet the due dates.

6. Make a Project Plan

Creating a project plan can also help avoid last-minute panic. An overwhelming amount of work is a common cause of procrastination, which can lead to poor time management. Help your child break down assignments into smaller chunks, each with its own separate due dates. This will encourage your child to plan ahead and start working on assignments earlier.

Learn more about why students procrastinate .

7. Work On One Thing At A Time

It might seem like more is being accomplished with multitasking, but splitting attention between more than one task isn’t an effective way to learn. Your child should work on one task at a time, giving it his or her full attention. Focusing on one task will help him or her complete it more efficiently and effectively.

8. Study In Shorter Bursts

For every 30 minutes of school work, have your child schedule a short 10-15 minute break to recharge. Trying to work on one thing for too long can actually cause students’ minds to wander more. Taking short breaks is a good way to give your child’s brain a chance to recharge so he or she can come back more focused.

9. Start Early In The Day

Encourage your child to work on assignments earlier in the day, or right after school. Have your child look over his or her agenda and master schedule to find out what needs to be completed that night and get started early. Waiting to start until later in the evening means your child has less time (and energy), leading to delayed bedtimes, unfinished assignments, and more stress for everyone.

10. Get 8-10 Hours Of Sleep

Getting enough sleep is important to help your child recharge his or her mind and have the energy needed to stay on track the next day. Use your master schedule to mark a cut-off time for homework each night as well as a set bedtime. Following this routine will help make sure your child has time to unwind at the end of each day and get the sleep he or she needs.

Does your child need help developing his or her time management skills? Our Study Skills tutoring program can help!

Recent Posts

• Report Cards

Tackling the Report Card Talk: 10 Tips

• Oct 25, 2024

7 Ways to Set School Goals For Success

• Oct 18, 2024

Everything You Need to Know About Study Skills

• Oct 11, 2024

Six Tips to Revive Deep Reading Skills

• Oct 04, 2024

Related Reading Resources

13 Signs Your Child Needs A Tutor

• Sep 6, 2024

• Enrichment , Motivation

Why Students Don’t Participate In Class

• Aug 30, 2024

Top 2023 School Topics Round-Up

• Dec 12, 2023

What is Ungrading?

• Feb 17, 2023

Find a GradePower Learning Location Near You!

Tutoring Subjects

Elementary School

Middle School

High School

College Prep

Subject Areas

Study Skills

Homework Help

Tutoring Programs

Little Readers ®  

Beyond Tutoring ®

Advantage™  

College Success Program

Cognitive Learning

Lifelong Cognitive Results

The GradePower Learning® Difference

How We Help

• United States

747 Hyde Park Rd. Suite 230. London, ON N6H 3S3

Copyright © 2024 GradePower Learning Centers, All rights reserved. Privacy & Terms Legal Notice Careers

GradePower Learning and the GradePower Learning Logo are registered trademarks of OX Royalties Limited Partnership, used under license.

MSU Extension

Homework: help your child develop key homework skills.

Holly B. Tiret, Michigan State University Extension - September 20, 2012

Explore suggestions to encourage the development of critical homework skills including organization, time management and basic study strategies

One key skill your child needs to develop is organization. It is easier to get started on homework when the basics are there, such as having a homework site, creating a filing system or using other visual organizers like a planner. Another key skill is developing time management. Children need a consistent time to study to help reduce or eliminate distractions. They need proper sleep, adequate breaks and an ability to predict the length of bigger projects or assignments. In addition, children need to have good study strategy skills. It helps if they know a variety of strategies such as rewriting, drawing, memorizing aloud and using flash cards.

Help your child develop a daily homework checklist:

• Copy homework assignments with teacher’s instructions
• Bring home any necessary materials
• Start homework at the set time
• Make an effort to do the homework well
• Place homework by the door ready to take back to school

Other ways to help your children improve their homework skills include spending time together. While your child is studying you can sit with them and read, study something new or catch up on local news, that way you can be available to help your child if needed. It may helpful to meet with your child at the beginning of the semesters to help them break down large assignments into manageable tasks. Be sure to monitor their progress. Work together with your child to manage interruptions, phone calls or friends who might stop by.

Talk with your child to get input on how to handle homework habits. Ask them what time of day is easiest for them to study. Find out what homework they find the most interesting and what is the most challenging for them. Discuss your family values about school, homework and education.

Helping your child develop the key homework skills of organization, time management and basic study strategies will translate into school success and life-long learning skills. By being open and getting your child’s input you are setting up a more cooperative family atmosphere.

This article was published by Michigan State University Extension . For more information, visit https://extension.msu.edu . To have a digest of information delivered straight to your email inbox, visit https://extension.msu.edu/newsletters . To contact an expert in your area, visit https://extension.msu.edu/experts , or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).

Did you find this article useful?

Ready to grow with 4-H? Sign up today!

new - method size: 3 - Random key: 2, method: personalized - key: 2

You Might Also Be Interested In

MSU researcher awarded five-year, $2.5 million grant to develop risk assessment training program

Published on October 13, 2020

MSU Product Center helps Michigan food entrepreneurs survive and thrive throughout pandemic

Published on August 31, 2021

Protecting Michigan’s environment and wildlife through the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program

Published on September 1, 2021

MSU Extension to undertake three-year, $7 million vaccination education effort

Published on August 17, 2021

MSU to study precision livestock farming adoption trends in U.S. swine industry

Published on March 15, 2021

MSU research team receives USDA grant to evaluate effectiveness, cost of new blueberry pest management strategies

Published on February 19, 2021

• academic success
• approaches to learning
• child & family development
• early childhood development
• life skills
• msu extension
• academic success,
• approaches to learning,
• caregiving,
• child & family development,
• early childhood development,
• life skills,