Time Management Speech Outline

Title: Time Management Rhetorical Purpose: To inform my listeners of how essential time management and the ways it can pave a path of success for college students and fight against procrastination. Thesis Statement: Time management is an essential skill and cure to procrastination, specifically during college years to assist students in finding ways to prioritize, stay healthy, and make the grade. Introduction I. Attention Getter: We all know that procrastination is an extremely real struggle. I could stand up here and tell you that I wrote this whole speech last night even though we’ve had weeks to do it and no one would hesitate to believe me for a second. But surprisingly, the truth is that I didn’t wait until the last minute to this assignment and that’s all because of my handy dandy time management skills. Everyone knows that it’s a common thing for teenagers to skate through high school living on procrastination and it never seems to bite them in the butt. I’ve quickly realized these past weeks that college is nowhere near the place for procrastination and I’m sure you have too so you might want to listen up real quick. II. Thesis Statement: Time management is an essential skill and cure to procrastination, specifically during college years to assist students in finding ways to prioritize, stay healthy, and make the grade. III. Audience Connection It’s no secret that “sleep is for the weak” around here. Or at least, sleep is for the prepared. Did you know that it is ACTUALLY possible for you to get sleep as a college student? It’s true. When I say time management, you may actually need to factor in when you need to go to sleep in order to not resemble a zombie the next day. IV. Credibility Many of us know the weekly waste of time that you feel you’re spending at your FIG class. Surprisingly, my FIG professor actually introduced me to many productive methods that allow me to manage my time better and lead me to success. V. Preview Today I will be talking about how to prioritize, stay healthy, and make the grade through following a daily calendar, creating time for yourself, and setting goals. Transition For starters, I’m going to focus on prioritizing your tasks which you can do by separating your todo list into a daily or hourly calendar. Body I. Prioritizing what you need to from highest to lowest importance helps assure that you get done what has the highest significance in your work load and go from there. i. A difficult task or an assignment that weighs a lot on your grade is often overwhelming to a person and they handle their stress towards it by avoiding it all together. 1. In an article titled “The Real Reasons Why You Procrastinate”, author Amy Swanson writes about a procrastinator’s coping mechanisms of distracting technology such as playing a video game or opening and Pinterest tab and how these distractions make the student feel better momentarily but only increases their stress over time (Swanson, 2016). Personally, I’d rather watch one more episode of One Tree Hill instead of starting on a paper weeks before but we all know how much I’d regret it the night before when I’m having to bust out all 10 pages in one long, agonizing night. 2. By getting your most stressful and most important tasks out of the way first, you can knock them out of the way and not have to have them stuck in the back of your head preventing you from doing something leisurely. ii. To make sure you actually follow up on your priorities as you planned, you can stay organized with a written to-do list in the form of daily and hourly calendars. 1. An article written by M.J. Simmering emphasizes on the need for your calendar to be detailed and complete (Simmering, 2006). a. For example, this article says that it is important to document important dates and not just hourly activities. By doing this you can hopefully find time for what you need to get done for the week by avoiding important dates where you may not have as much time. b. When it comes to creating this schedule, put the bulk of your productive time during the hours that you feel you work best, whether it’s studying in the morning, reading at night, break time in the early evening, whatever the case is for you. c. Another benefit of having a written, hourly calendar is that it forces you to follow a schedule and stay productive. I’m sure many of you are too familiar with the idea of laying in bed for an excessive amount of time simply debating whether or not to get up and go to the gym or study for your math test. Transition In my own college experience so far, knowing where I am going to be and what I am going to do hour by hour has allowed me to cope with my stress level one hour at a time and stay on top of the things I need to accomplish. Unfortunately, I’ve gotten to watch a few less episodes of One Tree Hill, but that beats a miserable all nighter in the study room writing a 10 page paper all at once. II. In college, your education pretty much needs to dominate all the other aspects of your life (Even though that isn’t how it all always works). But one thing that is even more important than your education is your health. In order to stay healthy in college, it is critical to make time for yourself. i. According to a Time Management article again by M.J. Simmering, you can reduce stress by getting an appropriate amount of sleep, exercising regularly, and eating properly. She also says that even missing out on a couple extra hours of sleep it can significantly alter your performance the following day (Simmering 2016). 1. As silly as it sounds, factoring in when you’re going to go to bed on that hourly to-do list I mentioned earlier could genuinely be the reason that you don’t pull another all nighter. ii. Having a positive mindset through your mental health is also just as important as your physical health. An article from NYU talks about how being sure to reward yourself for your success is a key part of the time management process. One of the author quotes “If we learn to balance excellence in work with excellence in excellence with play, fun, and relaxation, our lives become happier, healthier, and a great deal more creative” (McGee-Cooper). 1. It could be as simple as “after reading for 30 minutes, I’m going to spend 10 minutes on my phone”, or “when I finish this speech, I can go out to eat with my friends”. Transition Unfortunately, before the reward, there is work to be done. All that work that we’re striving to get done is for a single letter, your final grade. III. When it comes to college, time management itself is the concept of finding a day and time for studying, partying, going to class, working out, making it to your sorority meetings, getting involved in clubs, the list goes on. But people often forget to focus on the big picture which is your dedication to your education. i. Getting an education isn’t just about going to class for an hour on specific days and then going on about your leisurely life. At the end of the day what really matters is that final percentage on your Canvas page. 1. When it comes to your grades, an important thing to consider is that there is no such thing as a perfect student. And it is unrealistic to always get perfect grades. a. The authors from an NYU Time Management article mentioned that although some things need to be closer to perfect than others, paying an unnecessary amount of attention to detail can even turn into a form of procrastination (McGee-Cooper). 2. The number one thing you can do to strive for the best grade possible is to set goals for yourself. a. Author M.J. Simmering talks about the need for creating specific goals vs. unspecific goals so that you can actually evaluate your progress. For example, setting a goal to get good grades vs. setting a specific goal of 90% or higher for your nutrition class (Simmering, 2016). Transition Goal setting is the basis of your success because if you have nothing to strive for, where do you start? Goal setting is also a key to success because if you have too many things to strive for, how to make time for all of them? Creating different goals and rating their levels of importance will help you determine where to fit them in to your schedule and which task you need to accomplish first or put the most effort towards. Conclusion I. Summary of Main Points a. Today I talked about the key time management strategies of creating an hourly calendar, making time for yourself, and setting goals. II. Restate Thesis Statement a. Time management is a necessary skill for students to find a way to juggle all of their activities, stay healthy, and get the grade they want. III. Clincher a. As an avid procrastinator, I’d say that time management sounds like too much work. But on the contrary, it does sound pretty good to not feeling like you’re on your last dying breath after hour 7 of writing your 20 page that’s due tomorrow. So it looks like I’m going to give it a try. But that’s just me.