Manage your time

Managing your time makes a huge difference to your performance, and your sanity. Here are some tips:

Work out your priorities

If you're finding that you don't have enough time to study, you may need to limit the amount of time you spend doing other things, like watching TV or hanging out with friends.

It's still important to have a social life and time for relaxation, but perhaps use these activities as rewards when you tick something off your to-do list, or as time-out when you need to take a break.

Diaries and schedules

Organised people don't have great memories, they write everything down. To keep track of what you have to get done, you can:

• use your school diary or an online calendar
  
  
• set reminders in your phone
  
  
• print out weekly and monthly planners and stick them up where you study.

Set time limits

It's easy to spend too much time on some tasks and not enough on others. Give yourself time limits and try to stick to them. It will take some practice, but you'll get better the more you do it.

Daily and weekly to-do lists

At the start of each week, write a list of all the tasks you have to get done that week. Break these down into smaller tasks to do each day. As you finish each task, tick it off your daily list and see the progress you're making in your weekly list.