Between classes, tests, social events and personal hobbies, students’ calendars quickly fill up as the school year draws on. And as calenders become overloaded, so do students’ abilities to remember everything.

The human memory can only handle between three to seven chunks of information at any given moment, said Philip Gable, assistant professor of psychology and director of the Social Cognitive Emotive Neuroscience Lab. That’s why the to-do list is such a popular and effective tool for managing time.

“It’s called a working memory,” Gable said. “You can only juggle a few of those at one time. If you put it on a list, you don’t have to juggle it in your head, which helps you focus on what you need to be doing at the moment.”

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For the average student with the average memory and below average sleep schedule, time management can be the difference between saving a grade or a relationship. Lists can be helpful not just because they clear the mental cobwebs, but also because breaking down a task into its fundamental steps can help increase focus and action.

“The psychological term is called an implemental mindset,” Gable said. “It literally puts you into a mindset to accomplish that goal. ‘What am I going to have to do to get this done?”

Leroy Hurt, associate dean of the College of Continuing Studies and Project Management Program manager, said breaking down a project into smaller activities is one of several schedule management techniques taught to students.

“Students can apply that to their own work, for example, by thinking ahead to the tasks needed to get a course assignment completed on time and making sure they accomplish those critical tasks,” Hurt said.

Another essential skill, he said, is communication.

“Managers are said to spend 90% of their time communicating with other people,” Hurt said. “Students can apply the communication techniques to improve the quality of their interactions with other people.”

Hurt said getting projects done on time and within budget is a critical workplace skill that not only saves time but also credibility.

“I’ve seen troubled projects up close, and they can cost organizations much more money than originally planned and can also damage an organization’s reputation,” he said. “Worse, such projects can result in stakeholders not getting the benefits the project was designed to deliver.”

Those workplace skills can be rooted in collegiate habits. Richard Livingston, assistant director of the Center for Academic Success, teaches a Freshman Compass course that guides new students in developing the academic skills they need to succeed in college.

The CAS will host a workshop on time management Tuesday from 4 to 5 p.m. in 230 Osband Hall. Livingston said study skill workshops happen throughout the semester and cover topics like taking multiple-choice tests, reading college textbooks and final exam preparation.

“Those are just general study skills topics that students, especially beginning students, might need to be successful,” he said.

(See also “Study shows freshmen not always well-prepared for college“)

The CAS also offers tutoring, but, for subjects like reading or psychology, Livingston said study skills are the key to success. This can be especially challenging, he said, for students who leave the structured routine of high school and find that every day of college is different from the last. His compass course requires the use of a planner and emphasizes the use of lists to ward off procrastination.

“Getting organized is probably the main thing,” Livingston said. “Unlike high school, students are on their own in college, and they need to learn to motivate themselves to do things rather than putting them off.”

The CAS is located in Osband Hall, and Livingston said he encourages students to take advantage of the study spaces, free computer lab and long hours, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., especially as students move from midterms to finals.

“I generally find more interest around the middle of the semester to the end of the semester,” Livingston said. “I find that students generally become a little more concerned about their grades right around midterms.”

And with exams appearing on planners everywhere, students may be curious what psychology has to say about desperate measures like cramming or commonplace habits like multitasking.

The effectiveness of cramming varies depending on the content and the student’s testing style. Although it seems like a simple technique, multitasking is more demanding than simply trying to focus on two things at once.

“What you have to do is switch attention between those two things,” Gable said. “When you multitask, performance always suffers.”

What often falls to the wayside, however, is sleep. While some people believe sleep deprivation is only a problem in extreme cases such as all-nighters, even the hour lost during daylight savings can have consequences, as it has been shown to trigger an uptick in car accidents.

“It’s not an extreme term,” Gable said. “You function very poorly. You’re like half the person you should be.”

If students unplug at night and get their recommended dose of shut-eye, Gable said circadian rhythms naturally create a morning freshness and late-night surge, as well as the familiar afternoon slump. When students are well-rested, they can prevent their sleep schedules from conflicting with their class schedules and plan around the natural highs and lows of their days.

“Sleep is so underrated, especially in our society with caffeine and cellphones,” Gable said. “Getting enough sleep is as important as getting enough exercise.”

(See also “Students’ technology addiction disrupts sleep“)

Gable said the most important time management tip he has applied in his own life has been discerning between the important and the urgent.

“Most things in your life are urgent, but they’re not very important,” he said. “Is this really going to make a difference? What’s really important? That’s what makes the difference in the end.”

While social media updates and texts can feel urgent, Gable said, they are usually not important.

“Do the most important things first,” Gable said. “If it’s important to you, you should be doing a little bit every day.”

Prioritizing tasks properly eventually carries over to how much time gets spent in class or in practice, he said, and time management, like time, is more than just a collegiate concept.

“It’s something that happens for the rest of your life,” Gable said. “It’s kind of the one thing, no matter how we change it, we’re losing or spending at the same rate every day.

“Once you start realizing how valuable it is, then you stop wasting it on stuff that’s not valuable.”