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Ashley Glambin

Professor William Reader

ENG 111.M04

27 September 2022

Time Management Makes for College Success

When students enter college from high school, they may think that their time

management skills will transfer over. That is not always the case, as managing time in

college looks a lot different than in high school, as high school teachers have all of your

assignments laid out and remind you of due dates whereas college professors often

won’t walk you through it all and you're expected to complete a lot on your own. Time

management can be defined as the ability to use time efficiently and effectively.

Students think time management is something easy and that they don’t have to focus on,

but especially when it comes to online classes, it is one of the most important skills for

college students. Being able to manage time effectively makes college classes run

smoother.

I thought I had a great schedule for college. I was very wrong. When I first started

college I thought good time management was cramming all my assignments on the first

day of the week and being done for the week. That strategy made me feel very burned

out and I wasn’t understanding the material given. It was making me dislike college life.

I later realized that the setup I was using would not work and I needed to find a solution

so that I wasn’t exhausted and could spread out my classwork efficiently. Some writers

agree with me that time management is a very important skill for college. The writers

about time management agree that time management affects academic performance,

but the writers differ on how students background affects their ability to manage time.
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The writers overall agree that time management affects academic performance. Two

writers feel that poor time management such as being sucked in by outside distractions

can cause poor academic performance. Sebastian Trentepohl, et. al says in “How Did It

Get So Late So Soon? The Effects of Time Management Knowledge and Practice on

Students’ Time Management Skills and Academic Performance”, as they say, “They

spend a considerable amount of time on activities that are not conducive to their

academic performance or that distract them from learning activities, such as social

networking or watching TV [61–64]” (3). Since college is a lot of independent work,

college students can suffer from outside distractions which can negatively affect their

academic performance. Other writers also agree that poor time management leads to

poor academic performance. Writers Christopher A. Wolters and Anna C. Brady agree

with Trentepohl et. al in their article, “College Students’ Time Management: a

Self-Regulated Learning Perspective”, they state, “For instance, university students

devote a great deal of time to social networking, watching videos, computer gaming, and

other social or recreational endeavors that are unlikely to have a positive impact on their

academic performance (Panek 2014; Tanner et al. 2009)” (1322). These writers agree

that college students often fail at time management and end up focusing more on things

that negatively affect their academic performance.

Another writer, Mike Rose doesn’t go into depth like Wolters, Brady, and

Threntepohl et. al, but implies that time management affects academic performance as

he states in his article, “The Politics of Remediation”, that “James’s tutor suggested that

he come see me because he was getting somewhere between a C and a D in his

composition course and seemed increasingly unable to concentrate” (37). Since James

was more focused on outside activities, his academic performance was very low, as he
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was not using his time effectively. This is not directly talking about James' time

management, but it can be assumed that Rose is talking about the effects of poor time

management. Lastly, Rachel Baker, et. al says in “Does Inducing Students to Schedule

Lecture Watching in Online Classes Improve Their Academic Performance? An

Experimental Analysis of a Time Management Intervention”, the writers did a study and

said, “Similarly, Macan et al. (1990) found that scores on a robust time management

scale were positively related not only to higher college GPA but also to higher students’

self-perceptions of performance and general satisfaction with life. College students with

better time management skills both scored higher on cognitive tests and were more

efficient students, spending less total time studying (Van Den Hurk 2006)” (525). Baker

et. al explained more than Rose how students academic performance is better with good

time management. All of the writers generally agree that having good time management

leads to better academic performance overall.

While academic performance relies on time management, students' time

management can look different based on their background. Rose states that, “They come

to the university with limited experience in applying knowledge, puzzling over solutions,

solving problems” (40). While it is not stated, it can be implied that this is also applied

to time management, as students may be given the knowledge of how to manage their

time, but they don’t get a chance to use it, then when they get to college they don’t know

how to manage their time. Trentepohl et. al agrees with Rose and goes more in-depth, as

they say, “In any case, time management knowledge alone seems not to imply the

successful use of time management strategies, and a stronger focus on time

management practice with sufficient time to foster time management routines may be

important for enabling students to develop effective time management behaviors and
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thereby improve academic performance” (5). These writers both demonstrate that

students' having previous knowledge of time management doesn’t always mean they

know how to use it which can cause students to struggle in college with deadlines.

In addition, other writers had a different view on how students' background

knowledge affects their ability to manage time. Wolters and Brady Disagree with

Trentepohl et. al and Rose as they state, “These underappreciated processes include, for

instance, the activation of prior task knowledge, ongoing perceptions of the time

devoted to a task, and post hoc attributions and reflections on the effectiveness of time

regulation strategies. Two, our evaluation demonstrates the many ways in which

processes commonly viewed as foundational to SRL might, in no small part, be a

function of students’ time-related knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes or by students’

understanding and use of strategies for managing their time. In other words, the

building blocks of time management are likely intertwined and influence students’

involvement in the more traditional aspects of SRL” (1338). So, unlike Trentepohl et. al

and Rose, who feel that background knowledge doesn’t always mean that students know

how to manage their time, these writers believe that when students have a background

in time management they do know how to use it and will effectively manage their time.

From my research, reading, and writing, I have learned that while I have a

background in time management, it doesn’t mean that I am necessarily using my time

properly, but it is also good, as since I do have some knowledge in time management, I

can work towards properly managing my time and apply my knowledge of time

management so that I can be more engaged in my school work. To have a good academic

performance and be a better college student, I need to not let outside distractions, such
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as social media mess up my time management, so that I can have the best performance

in college.

In conclusion, time management is a very important skill for college students. What

worked in the past, doesn’t mean that it will work for a new school environment. All of

the writers agreed that with proper time management skills, students can have good

academic performance when they enter college. While Wolters and Brady differ from

Trentepohl et. al and Rose on how a background in time management will help students,

they still agree that background knowledge on managing time is an overall benefit to

have in college.

Works Cited
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Baker, Rachel et al. “Does Inducing Students to Schedule Lecture Watching in Online

Classes Improve Their Academic Performance? An Experimental Analysis of a

Time Management Intervention.” Research in Higher Education vol 60, issue 4,

2019, pp. 522-552. Proquest DOI:10.1007/s11162-018-9521-3

Rose, Mike “The Politics of Remediation.” Exploring Connections: Learning in the 21st

Century. Pearson, 2016, pp. 99-124

Trentepohl, Sebastian et. al. “How Did It Get So Late So Soon? The Effects of Time

Management Knowledge and Practice on Students’ Time Management Skills and

Academic Performance” Sustainability, Vol 14, issue 9, 2022, pp. 5097 Proquest

Wolters, Christopher Brady, Anna “College Students’ Time Management: a

Self-Regulated Learning Perspective” Educational Psychology Review 2021

pp.1319–1351 Proquest doi.org/10.1007/s10648-020-09519-z