First Things First

Students struggle with time management from excessive electronic usage

Does it seem like there’s never enough time in the day to get everything done?

Feel like you’re always running late?

Welcome to the 21st century.

A world filled with distractions everywhere you look.IPhone_6S_Rose_Gold

How is it even possible to get homework done at all, let alone fixate on doing assignments without being diverted by a wide variety of electronic devices?

What might at first glance seem innocuous, doing homework or studying while watching TV, texting or checking twitter can genuinely impair learning the material as well as lower test scores.

Every day, students and teenagers complain about how there aren’t enough hours in the day, or there’s too much on their plate to manage.

But do teens actually not have enough time, or are they just not utilizing their time well enough?

According to BeyondBookSmart.com, students were observed studying for a 15 minute period where they were asked to study something important. Research found was that students generally commenced to lose focus after about three minutes. On average, students only spent about 10 minutes of the 15 minutes actually studying.

In today’s society, everyone is busy — and we like to be.

But when you can’t handle your tasks because you’re convinced you have too much going on, contemplate how you prioritize your activities.

According to Baylor University’s latest research, high school students spend anywhere from five to nine hours per day on some sort of electronic device.

If you’re complaining about having no time to do the homework assigned, stop checking your phone every five minutes to scroll through Twitter because time definitely adds up, and you end up losing hours of study time.

Besides electronics being an obvious issue, it is important to keep a regular sleep schedule.

A large number of teens do not get the required amount of sleep that is needed.

Sleep deprivation can cause many health risks and therefore, cause students to struggle to excel in their everyday activities.

Students are held to extremely high standards by their friends and family. Teenagers are expected to get straight A’s, play multiple sports, get a job, be social and still live a normal life.

Being vigilant of how you utilize your time as one resource in organizing, prioritizing and prospering in your studies will relieve stress and save time.

According to BeyondBookSmart.com, if students are focused when doing homework, they generally retain more of the information when it comes time to take a test.

If students do their homework while multitasking, it results in less information being remembered and therefore, more time will be required for test preparation in order to achieve a similar result.

With all of these expectations, it is important for students to learn how to manage their time well while maintaining  a social life.