3 Time Management & Procrastination
2025
Cascadia College COLL101 Team
Introduction
One of the biggest surprises for new college students? Just how much time they think they have until everything’s due at once. After the structure of high school, college can feel wide open: fewer classes, more flexibility, and no one chasing you down about assignments.
But that flexibility comes with new responsibility. Managing your time is now your job and college work is often heavier and more demanding that what you might be used to. A lot of students, especially first-generation students, find this shift challenging.[1] The way college is structured often assumes you already know how to navigate it, which isn’t always the case.
The good news? You’re not alone, and time management is a skill you can learn. Colleges increasingly offer support through first year experience courses (like College 101!) which help students build student habits, learn organization techniques and adjust to the rhythm of college life.
This chapter is here to help you do just that. We’ll look at common time traps and offer practical tools to help you take control of your schedule.
Time and Your Personality
Research has shown us that our personal mindsets can hamper or enhance our educational and other outcomes.[2] Personal mindsets may also be related to college and to college time management, because our psychological make-up can influence how we see and feel about our college experience and time. This is similar to how we can think about water glasses as half full or half empty.[3]
Are you generally optimistic about what we can accomplish in college, or, do we see college and time in college as always being out of our control, or as full, or unchangeable? Consider the following questions:
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- When faced with school tasks, are you confident that you can assess what needs to be done and make appropriate plans?
- Do you make learning goals for yourself, plans for enacting them, and adjust them as necessary?
- Does new information spur you to rearrange your plans?
- Do you see failures and successes in school as learning experiences?
- Do you prioritize study time?
- Are you able to work on school tasks with other students in ways that benefit everyone?
- Do you have the ability to decide when you have done enough, or your work is good enough?
- Are you able to limit your screen time, taking time to be alone with your own thoughts or to be engaged fully in tasks without multitasking?
Mindset Time Management Suggestions
If you answered ‘no’ to some of these questions, you may be making it harder on yourself to succeed in managing your time and college studies effectively. You may feel like you can’t keep organized or take control of your time. Or, you might feel like it’s useless to try to change behaviors you’ve had for a long time.
A good first step to making time management changes is to learn about tactics, reflect on them, and work to incorporate a few into your day-to-day life. Instead of making a huge change, take it one step at a time! The following section contains a lot of time management strategy ideas.
Time Management Strategies for Success
Below are some strategies you can start using immediately to make the most of your time. Click on the arrow to see more information on each strategy.
Procrastination
Procrastination is the action of putting off something that needs to be done, often leaving it unfinished (or not started) until very close to or past a deadline. This definition easily summarizes a very difficult and sometimes debilitating issue. Some people battle procrastination daily, and others only occasionally. In a 2022 study, almost every college student admitted to procrastinating now and then and about 75% said they do it all the time.[4]
Researchers have identified a variety of procrastination styles. Namely, Linda Sapadin highlighted six types of procrastinators in her 2012 book. Do you see yourself in one of these styles:[5]
- The Perfectionist: Delays starting because they fear they won’t do the task perfectly. If it’s not flawless, it might as well not be done … yet.
- The Dreamer: Avoids tasks that require focus or attention to detail. Big ideas? Yes. Tiny steps? Meh.
- The Defier: Resists doing things on someone else’s timeline.
- The Worrier: Stays in their comfort zone by avoiding tasks that bring change or uncertainty. If it’s unfamiliar, it can wait.
- The Crisis-Maker: Waits until the last minute because they thrive on adrenaline. The pressure cooker is their natural habitat.
- The Overdoer: Says yes to everything, then struggle to find time to actually do anything. Too many commitments, not enough hours.
Reflection Question:
Do you see yourself in one of the six procrastination styles? How do you think it’s impacting your academic life? Is this impact negative?
There’s no single right fix for procrastination, but there are strategies that can help. The time management tools outlined in this chapter are a solid foundation. The short video (three minute) below offers more practical tips to help you recognize your procrastination patterns and build habits to counteract them.
Calendars, Planners, and To-Do Lists
These are all effective ways to help you organize your time. There are a ton of tools out there to help you schedule, the struggle is sticking with the tool!
Here are some tips to help you stick with a tool:
- Schedule your time, not just deadlines. Block our important parts of your day, like your classes, appointments, and work. Build your study and homework time around these non-negotiable times.
- Check the syllabus for each of your courses and add important dates to your planner.
- use a to-do list to fill in tasks that don’t need to be in your planner. It’s not realistic to schedule every single task, but making a separate list of things to do is a good way to keep yourself on track.
- Prioritize your to-do list.
- Don’t overdo it. Few people can study four or five hours nonstop, and scheduling extended study periods like this can set you up for failure.
- If a study activity or assignment takes longer than you originally scheduled, look ahead and adjust your weekly planner to prevent the stress of feeling behind.
Wrap-up
College gives you more freedom than you’ve probably ever had with your time. But that freedom comes with the responsibility to use it wisely. If you’ve ever found yourself scrambling the night before a deadline or staring at a blank screen while watching “just one more” episode, you’re definitely not alone.
Throughout this chapter, you’ve explored how time management (or a lack of it) can make or break your college experience. You’ve learned about different procrastination styles, how your mindset plays a role in how you handle schoolwork, and what tools and strategies can help you stay on track.
Here’s the big takeaway: Managing your time isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being intentional. You don’t need to overhaul your entire life overnight. Just pick a few strategies that work for you and start there. Whether you’re a Perfectionist, a Dreamer, or something in between, you can take control of your time, one step at a time.
- Gable, R. (2021). First Generation Students at Legacy Universities. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv16f6d38 ↵
- Dweck, C. (2016). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Ballantine Books. ↵
- van der Meer, J., Jansen, E., & Torenbeek, M. (2010). “It’s almost a mindset that teachers need to change”: First-year students’ need to be inducted into time management. Studies in Higher Education, 35(7), 777–791. Education Source. ↵
- Rozental A, Forsström D, Hussoon A, Klingsieck KB. Procrastination among university students: differentiating severe cases in need of support from less severe cases. Front Psychol. 2022;13:783570. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.783570 ↵
- Sapadin, L. (2012). How to beat procrastination in the digital age: 6 unique change programs for 6 personality styles. Long Beach, New York: PsychWisdom Publishing. ↵
