Higher Grades In Fifteen Minutes

Adult students return to college with well defined goals, significant life experience, and maturity. In those areas they are generally ahead of their younger counterparts.

So, what challenges are most difficult for them?

It is not always easy to divide one's week so that career, family, and education all get the time they require. And, while students in online degree programs have more flexibility than those attending on-campus classes on a fixed schedule, they still face the pressures of keeping up with readings and other assignments.

The ability to manage time efficiently and the self-discipline to work as hard as necessary are essential to the success of students of all ages. They are especially essential to adult students who must balance the demands of family, career, and the pursuit of a degree.

And, even students with great time management skills often overlook one important technique. A technique which requires little effort but can pay big dividends.

It would be nice to be able to add hours to your days or days to your weeks. But, although that is not possible, finding unused fifteen minute periods of time is not. And, if you can find and use just two such periods each day, the result is three and a half hours a week...nearly fifteen hours a month...of additional time devoted to your studies.

What can you get done in just fifteen minutes? The list may be longer than you first imagine. You can email a question to a professor or classmate. You can find websites with information related to your readings or the topic of an upcoming paper. You can do some highlighting in one of your texts. Or, you can review and/or revise a few pages of notes. See the possibilities?

Fifteen minutes can be a significant amount of time; enough time to get something accomplished. And, for most people, it is not too difficult to find at least two fifteen minute blocks of time daily. How about getting up just fifteen minutes earlier every day and spending that time doing schoolwork? What about spending fifteen minutes at your office before going home at the end of your workday? Perhaps you could read while eating breakfast or lunch.

I know a college student who spends between fifteen minutes and a half hour on her schoolwork whenever she returns to her apartment. By the way, she has been on the Dean's List during all of her five college semesters.

It doesn't matter how busy someone is, they can find two additional fifteen minute blocks of time to devote to their pursuit of higher education. And, that half hour a day can make anyone a far more successful student.