Tips to Better Manage Your Time

By FastWeb

Surprise! There are still only 24 hours in each day. That's right: 24 hours to meet with your students, email their parents, finish your paperwork, attend meetings and deal with any new issue that pops up during the day. And if there's time left over, you have to get your own life in order!

It will always be a challenge to fit all that stuff into your average day, but if you're armed with a plan to manage your time, you'll be able to accomplish your goals. Here are some tips that might help:

1. Plan first, then execute

Prioritize your responsibilities and develop a sense of which tasks are most important. Concentrate your efforts there.

Figure out where your time is going now. Keep a log for a week so you can see where you might have extra time, and where you have none.

Next, list which tasks or projects are most important for you in the long run. "Write everything down so you can keep track of what you've done and not done," says Amy Thompson, former president of the Illinois School Counselor Association. "Put [your tasks] in rank order and set aside time each day for those long term things."

Reviewing how you spend your time and ranking what you need to get done can help you optimize your time.

2. Your time is valuable - treat it that way!

If you feel that you've spread yourself too thin, it might be time to start saying “no.” Ok, it's not as easy as it sounds. Pressure from your boss and a desire to help as many students as possible are strong temptations. But a concentrated effort in one or two activities can translate into a more valuable and enjoyable experience, and might actually improve your productivity, overall.

Time management is about using the time you already have more efficiently. Isolate yourself from distractions so you can accomplish twice the amount of work in the same amount of time. Do you struggle composing email when you're tired? Wake up and respond to emails first thing in the morning, when your mind is fresh. Maybe you find that you work better when you complete easier assignments first. "Not everyone has the same system," Thompson says. "Develop your own unique system."

Another efficient use of time is to break tasks into smaller segments. Writing assessment reports in four, 30-minute periods spread over a week is less stressful (and tedious) than doing them all at once for an entire day. Self-imposed deadlines can keep you moving, but it's important to treat those deadlines seriously.

3. If you need help, don't be afraid to ask

Isn’t this what you always tell your students? "Part of what [a counselor's] training is about," says Thompson, "is to help students with time management." Follow your own, great advice and use the resources around you to help manage your time.

A secretary or office assistant can help organize your files. A veteran counselor might suggest a better way of managing student meetings, so they are more efficient. Talk to your director about setting "checkpoint dates" throughout the calendar year when they can monitor your progress on special projects. Or, just ask your peers for advice and whether they can recommend any skills or tips they may have developed from past experience.

With everything that your job demands, it’s a fact that you will run short on time occasionally. But by developing a solid time management plan and sticking to it, you'll find it's much easier to fit your life around those 24, little hours.