Time management for busy people can be a real struggle; no time to take care of yourself, no time to learn, never enough time to enjoy a moment of silence. Being busy can be a real challenge for your mental and physical state. That’s why we wrote this article to show you that it’s not over yet, you can still get back on your feet and find a healthy learning routine. We don’t want to waste your time so you’ll only need a couple of minutes to read this guide towards learning!
How to learn more efficiently?
The key sometimes is not to find more time to learn more, it’s knowing how to use your time efficiently and have the right habits while learning. There are various ways to help yourself to learn more efficiently, and everyone has their own way to do it, but here are a couple of things that might work for you :
- Use “lost time”: You know those moments when you’re in between two activities, taking a bus ride to school, waiting for the next class, waiting for someone,… Those are times you could use to learn something new, something quick, no need to take your heavy books out!
- Listen to music while working on something. It doesn’t work for everyone but it helps some people to focus, not be distracted by the surroundings and it might even help if you’re learning about music or a language for example!
- Have some sleep, yes time management is great but this time management should include a time to have enough sleep. You never learn anything when you’re tired.
- Allow yourself some time, and take breaks. You’re busy but you’re not a machine and you deserve to have some time for yourself. Whether it’s an hour break to take a walk or a day off to enjoy a time out with your friends and family, it’s something you can’t forget to add somewhere in your busy schedule.
- Fail to learn. Because you cannot do everything at the same time, failing is moving towards learning. Allowing yourself to fail will make you realize better your mistakes and you might succeed, later on, knowing where you failed and why you did so.
Learn a new language for busy people
Learning a language takes time and devotion, results are showing only after months or years of learning and some might get discourages halfway through. But if I told you learning a language can be fun and not consume too much of your precious time? From a language learner, here are a few pieces of advice to make your language learning easier :
- Listen to music in the language you’re trying to learn. Getting immersed in the language can help you with pronunciation and listening comprehension.
- Watch TV shows and movies in that language, similarly, it can help you with listening skills but also with reading skills if you turn on the subtitles (first in your mother tongue, then in the movie’s language and then you can even turn them off). Movies and TV shows can also help you grasp the culture associated with the language and some natural ways to talk in that language.
- Use flashcards on mobiles apps like Vocapp, improve your vocabulary using a flashcard system can help you without consuming too much time!
- Read books in the language you’re trying to learn, it’s one of the best ways to improve your writing skills.
- Play a video game in that language (if that’s possible of course), some games might make you gain some vocabulary like Minecraft and others might help you gain some logical sense in your new language (RPG, multiplayer games, strategy games,…)
- Last but not least, love the language. You will never succeed in learning a language if you don’t like it or if you don’t enjoy learning it.
And, of course, you have to trust the process, it can take time but if your hold on you’ll get to speak in a new language soon enough!
How to learn every day
Because learning is not always about gaining scholar knowledge to reach good grades or to impress others, learning is much more than that. And, spoilers alert! Everyone learns every day, even busy people!
Look around, isn’t it beautiful? Raise your eyes and look at the world. Enjoy a nice walk, look around while being in a car, and open up to the world. Sometimes learning is about understanding, feeling, finding this curious spot you never saw on your way to work.
It might sound like one of those cliché quotes from Instagram but every day is a lesson and you should take advantage of this. Even what you do in your spare time is a way to learn new things. Never focus on what’s society accept as a valuable learning experience
Learning about anything is something new to add to your learning development, whether it’s about classic literature, pop music, any language, political science, or video games!
Make this a fun learning experience, learning things that you enjoy, watching a video rather than opening a book when you’re feeling tired. Learn all the names of your favorite sports team or the 23 members of the Kpop group NCT! Everything is valuable as long as you enjoy learning new things.
Who knows, you might even learn things without realizing it! 😉
How to find time to study with a part-time job?
Unfortunately, there is no magic recipe to manage both, working part-time and studying. You keep thinking about all the time you have left to study for the next exam but it’s not that much. Then the dilemma always comes up: should I study or should I give myself some time off? You sure will have to make sacrifices.
Even if you need to succeed at this exam, don’t push yourself too hard. Sleeping, eating, and having a little time for yourself is the most important thing. For studying you can try to follow the advice on efficient work I mentioned earlier but you can also try to find the rhythm that will suit you.
If you don’t have time to watch your favorite series or enjoy a time out with your friends, try to make those activities a learning opportunity. Study with your friends around a drink and then go for a walk with them, watch a docu-series on the subject you’re studying, read your notes on the bus to school. There are various ways to enjoy your time while studying, the thing is to find the one that suits you.
And one more thing! You can choose to slack off one day to get some rest or do something you like. Your mental and physical health is more important than anything.
Have you learned anything?
Did you know that the real name of Bangkok is Krung Thep กรุงเทพ, which means ‘City of Angels’? (actually, there is a longer version of the Thai name of Bangkok but that’s probably a bit too much to learn) Now you’ve learned at least one thing today! Time is just a number, you do what’s best for you with it, I’m sure you’ll manage to learn plenty of things even if you’re busy! You just have to adapt your rhythm and open your eyes. Don’t forget to have fun learning new things and good luck!