Spoiler alert! There is no secret. At least, I haven't figured one out. If I had, I would've studied more for my history midterm even though my schedule was packed between heading home and celebrating my sisters' birthdays with my family.

Here's the thing: everyone talks about time management being the key to surviving in college, but I don't think there's one way to go about this. What does managing your time even mean? Does it mean writing your schedule out in an organized planner? Does it mean preparing for exams weeks in advance? Does it mean separating events so that you aren't spreading yourself too thin?

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The answer is yes. Time management includes all of these things, and the raw reality is that no matter how we try to brush time management off as a fun and easy concept, it's not. It's easy to fall into the trap of procrastination (as I'm sure you and I know well).

Whenever my mom FaceTimes me, she mentions that I look exhausted… which is not true. Compared to other students, I'm getting an incredible amount of sleep. (Eight hours! Go me!) Yes, I get eight hours of sleep a night. Yes, I eat three meals a day. Yes, I go to all my classes (for the most part).

But at what cost?

The bulk of being a college student isn't about managing your time, even if a lot of it is. What I've realized over time is that college is more about prioritizing. It's about choosing what is most important to you, and some parts of your life will inevitably be sacrificed whether that is your mental health, your sleep schedule, or your grades.

Let's face it: there is not enough time in a day to get everything we need to do everything that is required of us. Our society glorifies being busy and constantly working, and as such, we like to overload ourselves. We join all these clubs (even if they don't really fit into our schedules), we spend time building up relationships, we take the difficult classes… only to crumble beneath the pressure.

I wish there was a way to get everything done. But considering I'm writing this article late at night, right after reading "The Scarlet Letter" for my American Literature class, I'm not the person to come for advice on this.

But get the planner. Fill out that calendar. Scribble the important dates on the whiteboard. That's the first step.

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Next, you tell yourself that in a few years, you won't even remember this stressful week. You won't remember that essay that exhausted you. You won't remember the sleepless nights. You won't remember the grade you received on the exam you spent days cramming for.

Then you convince yourself that you will succeed. Stop telling yourself that you're going to fail that test. Instead, do everything in your power to pass. Take out your textbooks, go to the library, and study.

Don't check your social media while you're working. Don't leave everything for the last minute. Do give yourself enough time to finish assignments. Do force yourself to study—even if you can only manage it for a few minutes at a time. Do schedule time for yourself.

Unfortunately, there is no secret to managing your time as a college student. I wish there was, but the way we confront our studies differs depending on the person, and as much as I wish what worked for me would work for you, that's not realistic. Instead, do the little things everyone says to, and formulate a schedule and a mindset that helps you.

Of course, we all have our bad days, and we should forgive ourselves for that. But we should not let those bad days define our college careers.

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