Wondering how to manage multiple college deadlines? When you’re in college, you no doubt have to put up with a million jokes from older family members about how easy and carefree your life must be right now, but oh, if only they knew the truth! College might look fun in the movies, but in reality, you are probably staying up until 3 am every night not because of partying, but because of the multiple deadlines that you have lingering over your head! College professors can be brutal when it comes to setting deadlines so close to one another, but try not to let this dark tunnel get the better of you! Here are some helpful tips on how to manage multiple college deadlines.
Planning is one of the most important tips for how to manage multiple college deadlines. When you are making a plan of action for your deadlines, make sure to imagine things in a visual sense. Rather than planning things by word count, plan them by page amounts, because that is a much easier thing to visualise in your head. For example, “today I’m going to write three pages of this word document” gives you a much better image of the workload than “today I’m going to write 1500 words”. These visuals can help you to plan much more effectively.
It can be overwhelming to start with a huge to-do list that is pages long, so instead, trick your brain into being more relaxed by starting with a few important things, and then adding a handful more once you have started to really get into the initial things on the list. If your mind doesn’t feel overwhelmed, you will be in a much better position to keep plugging away at the work.
Do your best to go into offline mode when trying to get through multiple assignments. This means turning off the TV, putting your phone to one side and staying away from all of the social media platforms that are so good at wasting hours of your time! If you have nothing else to do other than the work in front of you, you will be much more motived to do it!
Get the ball rolling by starting off with a lot of smaller, little assignment issues that can be completed in a short space of time. This will help to get you in work mode without using up too much of your energy, and when the larger tasks start to approach, you will only have those big issues to worry about. Everything else will be dealt with already.
To keep your mind fresh and on the ball, make a strict plan about task switching. This will ensure that you spend equal amounts of time on all of your looming deadlines, and you won’t give yourself the chance to get bored or hopeless about any one assignment. You don’t have time to be despondent!
Just as important as periods of hard work are periods of rest and relaxation! You aren’t a machine that can just keep going and going, so it is important to schedule breaks amongst your studying that will allow you to recharge your batteries and come back fresher and more motivated each time. If you burn out, then it is going to be almost impossible to get back on the work train afterward!