Time Management: The Critical Skill for Student-Athletes

Managing your time efficiently may be the hardest task you face in college. It is a task that will remain difficult so long as you combine athletic and academic pursuits. All good students have to work at efficient use of their time, but athletes must become even better at this than most students, since athletic and academic responsibilities represent two full-time jobs. You may know of some student-athletes who seem to float through college playing cards, tossing Frisbees, telling jokes, and generally playing around. They exist on every campus and are often popular because they are always available to socialize with. But such individuals are not good models to follow for several reasons. First, they are usually in more hot water than they are willing to admit. Wasting time is often their way of saying, "I can't hack it, so I don't really care." Second, beneath the fun-loving image you will probably find a person who is heading down a dead-end street. These people may have a lot of natural talent, but they are wasting it by not working to develop it further. Others who begin with less but are willing to put in the time to develop their talents are likely to pass them by, both in college and in their careers. Third, student-athletes who have a habit of wasting time are looking for others whom they can drag down to their level. If you see three athletes who tend to waste time, you could make a nice profit betting that two of them will flunk out, drop out, or at least lose their eligibility.

Scheduling Your Time: Making good use of your time requires effort, practice, and vigilance, but it will make college life far more enjoyable and profitable for you. The basic strategy is simple enough: prepare a weekly activities calendar and follow it religiously. Keep your calendar accessible; it does little good inside your desk drawer. Tape it to the inside cover of your notebook. Fill out a new one every Sunday night before you begin that evening's study session. (If you wait until after the study session, you may be too tired or forget.)

The first items to fill in on your weekly calendar are class sessions. (As soon as you know your class schedule and fill these into the schedule, make enough photocopies for each week in the term.) Next, fill in team practices, games, and travel. These are the commitments around which everything else in your week will revolve. If it is your sport's off-season, fill in time for conditioning and self-directed practice. If you have a part-time job, your work schedule must also be filled in, of course, although some people are lucky enough to be able to work their job hours around other commitments. Don't forget to include sleep and eating time. Although these may be flexible, they take up significant blocks of time each day, so should appear before you fill in time for studies, fun, and personal chores (laundry, shopping, etc.). Don't forget to schedule time for socializing. To keep efficient at work tasks, you need to relax and socialize, and you'll be able to enjoy this time more without feeling guilty about having fun if you include it as part of your schedule. And finally, take the effort to adjust and refine your schedule so that it is an accurate reflection of your week's activities. Don't be like the dieter who "forgets" the calories in that mid-afternoon candy bar. In order to have a chance at success as both an athlete and a student, you have to be efficient with your time and know where you spend it.



Juggling Your Commitments: We are all created equal in at least one sense: every one of us has no more or less than 168 hours at our disposal each week. The difference is in how we spend our time. Consider the following:

• A normal semester course load is 15 units, which equals 15 hours in class each week.
  
  
• The rule of thumb for college courses is that three hours of study should be spent for every hour in class. This equals 45 hours of study each week.
  
  
• College athletes often spend 40 to 50 hours each week in such sport-connected activities as practices, games, travel, skull sessions, and conditioning.
  
  
• The total of the weekly time commitments listed above is 110 hours, which leaves only about 58 hours (roughly 8 hours per day) for all other activities (sleeping, eating, socializing, etc.).
  

How does a student-athlete fit all of these other activities into only 8 hours per day? Some athletes are unable to fit everything in, and their solution is to let their studies slide. It is the rare coach who will recognize that certain activities may be as important (or even more important) than a player's athletic commitments. Many coaches recommend-or even demand-that their student-athletes take only 12 units during "in-season" terms (this is the least that a student can take and still be eligible for athletics). In addition, some coaches suggest that only easy courses, those that don't require 2 or 3 hours of study time per unit, be taken during the athlete's competitive season.

In the sample week's schedule on the facing page, the student-athlete under consideration is taking five courses, including one lab (16 units in all), during a semester of intercollegiate competition. This is a heavy academic load for a sports season. In this sample week, the student has scheduled 34 hours for sports commitments (ranging from weight-training sessions to contests); 16 hours for class time and lab work; 33 hours for study outside of class; and 19 hours for socializing. The week is tightly scheduled, and additional hours for sports activities may have to be borrowed from socializing or from sleep time if the coach requires extended practice or that game films be watched, or if team travel time takes longer than anticipated. Taking four courses instead of five (13 units compared to 16) would provide this student with approximately 10 more hours for team and study responsibilities. Some colleges give a unit of academic credit for intercollegiate team participation, which can count toward the 12 units minimum for eligibility and may even apply toward graduation at some schools (although such units rarely can be used for General Education credit or even for credit toward a Physical Education major).

In sports having seasons spanning the entire academic year, there is no latitude to take a heavier course load during off-seasons. A similar problem exists for athletes who must maintain year-round training schedules. Athletes in these circumstances who feel that they can handle only 12 or 13 units per term will probably have to take longer than four years to graduate. If your athletic time commitment is 40 or more hours per week, or if you are in an especially time-consuming major, you might seriously consider either attending summer sessions or stretching your college education over another term or year, rather than shortchanging either academic or athletic responsibilities.

Organizing Your Study Time: When we don't really want to do something or would prefer to do something else, and especially if no one is standing over us to make sure we really do what is scheduled, we often find all sorts of excuses for delay or avoidance. Since the time you have scheduled for studying is probably not the time you most look forward to, you will have to take measures to make sure it is used efficiently. Do the following to help keep from wasting your study time:

• Write down what you will begin the next study session with before the session begins. Identify the topic of your study session either in class or before you end the prior study session. This will help to get you out of the starting blocks quickly, the hardest part of studying.
  
  
• Just as most coaches lay out schedules detailing what will be covered that day, develop a plan for your study time. Make sure that each course is given adequate study time each week.
  
  
• When you use up the allotted time for one subject, leave it even if you aren't finished. Don't borrow from the next subject's study time. This will keep you from shortchanging a course and help you to be more efficient for the next study session.
  
  
• Daydreaming belongs to leisure time. Commit yourself to your study time and commit yourself to your play and leisure time. That way you'll enjoy and profit more from each activity.
  
  
• Avoid cramming for tests. Study a little at a time, but often. A set schedule helps you do this.
  
  
• Study for tests before sleeping. Your subconscious mind tends to repeat the information while you sleep, in essence giving you more hours of study.
  
  
• If your mind wanders during a study session and you can't snap it back to the subject, take a 5-minute break (no longer), preferably alone. (Study breaks that involve other people tend to extend well beyond 5 minutes.) Some people need more short breaks than others, but everyone should be able to get through at least half an hour of study without a break.
  
  
• If your coach has set up study halls and you must (or want to) attend, sit toward the edge of the group where there is less chance of being bothered by or curious about what others are doing.
  
  
• Keep a dictionary by your side as you study and use it whenever you have the slightest doubt about the meaning of a word. When writing a paper, keep a dictionary, a thesaurus (for synonyms), and a manual of style close at hand, and refer to them regularly. Using these resources actually speeds up your studying and writing rather than slowing them down, and you learn more each time.