Time Management Tips for Test Anxiety

Are you prone to test anxiety? Here are some ideas to ease your stress:

Don't procrastinate. You've heard it a thousand times - waiting until the last minute will make you crazy! If you have an exam coming up, start studying today! Try the 15-minute club. Sometimes it can be overwhelming to consider all the material you need to study so that you can do well on the exam. One way to lessen this overwhelmed feeling is to set a timer for 15 minutes and study for that length of time without interruptions. Then go do something else for a while, before setting the timer for another 15-minute study session.

Get enough rest. Sometimes as test takers we think that staying up late to study is a good idea. But the next day, fatigue will damage your ability to concentrate and retain information, which hurts your studying efforts in the long run. Lack of rest also contributes to the inability to handle stress, which increases your feelings of anxiety.

Schedule time to study. If you keep a calendar, pull it out and decide how much time you have to study each day and use some basic time mangement techniques. If there isn't any time, you may need to cut out some activities until the exam date is over. Write in your planner when you will study and for how long, and then make yourself keep to the schedule!

Plan to relax and enjoy life. As the test date gets closer, you may find that there's not enough time to study, and that familiar anxious feeling might well up. This is a signal to reprioritize for a minute. It doesn't mean that you should procrastinate or avoid studying. But anxious test takers may need some time to unwind before the test. It has been said that when time is short and stress is high, successful people take a short break to keep everything in perspective. So go play with your kids at the park, do some aerobic exercise, have dinner with a friend or your spouse, or call someone who is important to you. Then hit the books again at your next scheduled study time, and you'll be more refreshed and relaxed than before.

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