Students, exercise time discipline. Time is a valuable resource, more valuable even than money. Budget your time wisely, spending it on the most important activities first. Then with your remaining time, spend it on “luxuries”.
You always know how much money you have remaining – just look in your wallet and your bank account. You can count the dollars in your wallet, and see your bank balance online if you’ve signed up for online banking with your financial institution (whether bank or credit union). But none of us ever knows how much time we have remaining. You might live to a ripe old age of 100 and die quietly in your sleep. Or you might get killed in a car accident on the way home from school today. Life is unpredictable, and although we all know our time will end someday, none of us know when that time will end. Be sure to spend your time wisely, on valuable endeavors.
By the way, rest and recreation is not a waste of time. Occasional periods of rest are essential to rejuvenate yourself, so that when it’s time to get to work and get stuff done, you are operating in top form and at full capacity. Time for self-care is a necessity, not a luxury. You can’t pour from an empty cup. Of course, don’t overdo it and spend all your time on fun pursuits. It is necessary to actually put some time into work and study, to actually get things done and make a meaningful contribution to society.
It is interesting to note that in certain places, companies are switching to a four-day workweek. They have had positive results with increased productivity. It turns out that when people are well-rested, they can perform better and get more done. Athletes, you may already be familiar with the importance of rest. Weightlifting stresses your body, and during the period of rest afterwards is when your muscles and bones actually grow stronger. Wisely implementing periods of rest is actually essential for growth and development.
It’s easy for all of us to get caught up in a day to day treadmill of low-importance tasks, while ignoring more important things. Make sure you prioritize and manage your time wisely, spending your time on the most important things first. Is your grandma old and infirm, with few years remaining? If spending quality time with her is important, then put that in your schedule first. Otherwise, that important quality time may fall by the wayside as you spin your wheels on other daily tasks of lesser importance.
In my previous job as a project engineer, I often fell into the trap of spending time on routine day-to-day tasks rather than larger, more complex tasks that, if completed successfully, would have reduced the load of day-to-day tasks. Instead of solving problems piecemeal, I should have focused on larger, root cause problems that would have reduced the incidence of routine day-to-day problems. Stephen Covey even talks about this in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. By spending time on solving important problems, you can reduce the load of minor day-to-day problems that waste a lot of your time and effort.
When I was a student at UC Riverside, at one point I was studying a double major, both electrical engineering and political science. Engineering classes typically had homework and lab assignments due each week. Political science classes typically had a mid-term, a term paper, and a final exam – spaced much farther apart than once per week. I often delayed working on my term paper while spending my weekly time on engineering assignments. This sometimes resulted in working last-minute on term papers for political science, rather than giving those term papers the time and thought that was necessary to do a good job on them. Not surprisingly, I scored better in my engineering classes than my political science classes. I failed to work on the big, long-term goals because I got caught up in the routine weekly engineering assignments.
For a specific method on time management, please see https://www.a-stem-tutoring.com/student-resources/ and look at the bottom section that discusses time management.