Tag Archives: time management

How To Manage Your Time Better With Apps

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It’s about 10 p.m. the night, and Emily realizes she has a five-page essay due before 12 and starts panicking. She begins fighting with the clock trying to get this assignment done before it causes a dent in her grades, and she regrets not doing her work earlier and thinks about how she could have done this better. This scenario is one of the likely things that a person with bad time management experiences. Most of the time, students with bad time management get low grades at school, so here are some apps that can help you improve your grades with better time management. 

The most important thing to manage your time is reducing your screen time or having a limit on it. Most teenagers spend most of their time doing nothing but scrolling on social media for hours, such as TikTok and Instagram, and they aren’t even aware of it or can’t seem to break away from it. As a teenager who has personally experienced this, sometimes an app limit or screentime limit is useless, especially since most of the time, I just hit the “Ignore Time Limit” on the feature and I get back to scrolling mindlessly on social media. I was aware of this and began testing out a few apps that supposedly claim to help reduce your screen time. After doing lots of testing, I found an app that works for me. This might work for me, but it does not mean it might not work for others. This app is called “One Sec,” and it is on the App Store and Play Store, so anyone can download the app. The app is not fully free, but it allows you to still block apps and reduce your screen time. When you download this app and follow the tutorial, it will help you run a shortcut on a specific app so that when you open that app, it tells you to take a deep breath. I used this on TikTok because I find myself scrolling on it when I should be doing my homework. It has helped me get a better sense of self-control because when I open my phone and see the “It’s time to take a deep breath,” it allows me to step back and think about my work and how I should get it done. It does get annoying, especially if I don’t need the restriction and I have to wait seconds before opening TikTok, but it is useful when it comes to my schoolwork.

Adding on, another way you can manage their time better is by setting up routines. If you set up a routine and do this continuously, it will turn into a great habit, and it’ll come easy to you. Set up a routine for after school that fits your needs and try to stay consistent with it. Once you stay consistent with it, you will be getting your work done productively, and you might finish your work early and have free time to do whatever you want. The app “Routinery” can help you set up routines and stay consistent with them. I use Routinery for my morning routines and after-school routines, and my life has been easier because of it. For the first few days, it was a struggle trying to stay consistent, but once you do it every day with the timer on Routinery, it will come easy, and sooner or later, you won’t even need the app to remind you to do your homework at 4:00 or drink water after waking up. I think this app is great at helping you manage your time better and probably make your life easier too.

The Pomodoro Technique: A Time Management Method

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With lots of assignments and tests piling up, I as a student have been very stressed out recently. Stressing all the time hasn’t helped my productivity or time management; I think I’ve spent more time worrying about schoolwork than actually completing it. Thus, I’ve been trying new study methods, and one has really worked for me.

The Pomodoro Technique is a study method for time management that breaks long study hours into 25-minute periods of focused work followed by 5-minute breaks. Here are the steps in a more detailed form:

Step 1: Identify the assignments you need to work on.

Step 2: Set a timer for 25 minutes and work on an assignment without getting sidetracked.

Step 3: When the timer goes off, take a 5-minute break.

Step 4: Work for 3 more work intervals, or pomodoros.

Step 5: Take a 30-minute break and begin the study sequence again.

This study technique worked really well for me! I was able to complete many assignments I had been procrastinating on and not get distracted by my phone or other distractions the entire time. Something that helped me was making a to-do list and highlighting the tasks of the highest priority. With my phone as the timer, I found that I was much less distracted by it, because each time I opened my phone, I saw the timer and was reminded to keep working. Using a timer works very well for me, as it motivates me to concentrate and get as much work done as possible before the timer sounds. Also, I think a 5-minute break is a great time frame to get up, stretch, and get a quick snack before getting back to work without getting distracted.

All in all, the Pomodoro Technique was a very helpful and successful study technique in my experience. It allowed me to stay motivated and productive while working for multiple hours and completing many assignments without getting sidetracked. Hopefully, it works for you too! If you’ve been feeling stressed or have trouble managing your time efficiently, give it a try!

Lam T.

Time Management

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As finals slowly approach, I have often found myself stressed with school and sports. Balancing school, sports, and extracurriculars has proven to be a struggle in my life and many others. Learning how to manage time has proven to be a beneficial skill in life, but it is challenging to learn. 

Here are two ways you can master time management:

  1. Creating a To-Do List
  • There’s a reason why creating a To-Do list is so popular: using a To-Do list can help you keep track of homework, upcoming projects/tests, and chores around the house. To-Do list lets you plan your study time and mark what you complete. Using a list helps you monitor your assignments. A bonus is that checking off a task is a motivator to finish homework.
  • If you prefer to keep track of your To-Do list online, there are many websites (and apps) to do so. I enjoy Pomofocus; this website has a To-Do list and a Pomodoro timer. This leads me to my second point–use a timing system!
  • Benefits: Checking off tasks creates a sense of accomplishment, limits stress, and lessens procrastination.
  1. Utilizing Timing Techniques
  • A timing system allows for the allotted time of working and breaks. The Pomodoro Strategy arranges 25 minutes of work time and 5-15 minutes of rest time. This enables users to have time for work and breaks. Studies have shown that people with gaps between study sessions are more productive than those without. 
  • The Pomodoro Technique has helped me set realistic goals when studying by creating small steps that gradually build up to my main objective.
  • Benefits: Increases accountability, reduces distractions, and improves productivity.
  • An extra note: Looking ahead in the next week or two is essential when planning your study time. This can help you stay on top of upcoming tests and projects.

Final Notes!

Since I have used these strategies in school, I have never missed an assignment and had time to study for exams. Though these two tips seem like small factors in the large scheme of things, setting a To-Do list and timing techniques significantly improve time management.

Organizing your time is essential to being a successful student, employee, and athlete. Using these methods will help you maximize your productivity in a small amount of time.

Thank you for reading!!

– Gwendy M.

Digital Leadership Workshop Program for Teens

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Happy February, everyone! I am Tran Nguyen, a girl scout of Troop 2279, located in Santa Ana, CA. As a senior in high school, I am currently working towards my Gold Award, the highest award in the Girl Scout program.

During quarantine, everything was closed. Due to everything being canceled and closed, we couldn’t earn service hours or perform community service, and this went on for about 6 months. We didn’t know what else to do with our bucket-load of free time that we had during quarantine. We teenagers love spending time on our devices, and our parents couldn’t tell us to get off and do something productive easily. Social media is a HUGE part of our lives. But what if I told you that we, as teenagers, could use social media in a better way?

As a student who has struggled with procrastination and social media addiction from 8th grade to junior year in high school, I understood what it was like to be unproductive and how it was a challenge to balance school, extracurricular activities, and social media platforms. After learning about social media marketing and diving deeper into that skill during quarantine, I was able to find that balance. Knowing how many teenagers also struggle with finding that balance, I wanted to help them through my workshop program.

My online program, the Digital Leadership Workshop, aimed to show and help the teenage population become more aware of how they can use social media as a tool instead of something to waste time on. This program did that by teaching the basic skills of social media marketing — a skill where one could use social media to help other communities, groups, clubs, charities, organizations, businesses, and even grow him/herself to serve the people in his/her community.

The Digital Leadership Workshop taught basic skills of social media marketing including:

  • defining a target audience
  • how to run a business page on social media
  • how teenagers can apply these skills to help others in their community
  • and how advertisements work on social media

While collaborating with the Central Library, I was able to share these skills with up to 10 people, and their awareness about this subject grew from 50% to 85%. I would like to thank the Mission Viejo Library and Mr. Allen Kesinger for giving me the opportunity to share my expertise with the teenagers there. I know I didn’t get much of an audience throughout the duration of my workshop program, but the feedback I received was very insightful. It helped me to become more aware of how I can make the program better for future teenage audiences; I look forward to presenting at more locations.

Thank you!

–Tran N.

For more information, please see the flyer above or click to visit the website.