In order to be effective and efficient when in college students must cultivate personal time management skills. People with good time management skills are usually able to function exceptionally well even when under extreme pressures. Good time management skills enable you to take control of your college workload and your life. This is easier said than done; so, for those struggling with this issue, here are some helpful tips to help you re-direct yourself.

Just because you are busier now than ever in your life does not mean that 'being busy' should be your focus. In fact, this will detract from your effectiveness. You must shift your focus from constantly dwelling on how busy you are to what tasks actually need to get done. Figure out what matters the most and start there; this shift in focus is crucial to your workload accomplishments.

How long do you spend every day on unimportant things that distract you from your task at hand which is success in college? How often do you wish that the days were longer and that if you only had more time you could accomplish so much more? If this thinking is pervading your thoughts, then you need to start setting goals by keeping a schedule and making to-do lists. By doing this you will be much better organized, reliable and effective.

Procrastination can be a college student's nemesis and should be avoided at all costs. Completing tasks at the last minute or always asking for extensions is very stress producing and emotionally costly. Always thinking that you will have time 'later' to complete a task could be your downfall. Try to figure out why you are procrastinating so that you can set new goals, refocus yourself and begin tasks promptly.

Prioritizing what you need to do and accomplish is especially important. Without prioritization, you may be working very hard and feeling like you are getting nowhere. This is where a "to do" list comes in. But it cannot be a random list, it must be structured for maximum effectiveness. Set your list up strategically in any way that makes sense to you (most important to least important, easiest to hardest etc.) so that when deadlines are approaching you won't find yourself totally frustrated trying to get something critical done at the last minute.

Whatever you do, you need an organized system that allows you to handle your workload regardless of the pressures placed on you. Time management skills are the keys to your college success; get serious about effectively managing your time and you will never again have to worry about what needs to get done or where you are going. You will be on your way to knowing your goals, maximizing your effectiveness and winning control of your life and time.

Sue Behlmar writes eduaction related articles for the American Educational Guidance Center. Subjects of her articles include online colleges, financial aid and online degrees most likely to lead to career advancement.

Since it's a truism that "Selling is a numbers game," M.U.D. Throwing Marketing might be your standard approach.

This marketing strategy is based on the idea, "If you throw enough 'mud' on the wall, some of it will stick and you'll make money."

Disguised as a quick and easy method, M.U.D. Marketing finds people who are eager for your product or service. Among new business owners, this tops the list of favorite marketing strategies.

They typically reason that they shouldn't wastes time researching their target market when they can sell to everyone breathing and watch the profits roll in. On the surface, this seems like a great viewpoint.

However this approach is costly in time and money with little indication of actually being effective, this approach only creates an air of "busyness."

Think about it. You have a pile of mud right next to you. Let's make it a big pile. You grab a handful and start throwing it at the wall.

The problem is you don't know where the target is located. You keep flinging mud hoping you'll hit it.

With so much mud, you could spend quite a bit of time before you use all the mud. Then you learn that the target was the plaque over the coffee center. You only hit that a few times.

Market Un-Determined or Marketing Un-Defined is the true meaning of M.U.D.

Both of them spell disaster for your profits.

If you had taken the time to find the true target, your results would have been totally different. Look at all the energy you wasted slinging at everything in the room. Look at all the mud you wasted, and mud costs money.

Identifying your target market may seem like the slow road to results, but it actually speeds your way to the goal: higher profits. Why take that avenue when it will take much less effort, time, and money to give you the results you desire?

To identify your Target Market, ask yourself these questions:

1. What problem does your product/service solve?

2. What benefit does your client experience?

3. Who is the person with this problem?

4. Is the person male or female? A stay-at-home mom or a power executive? A baby boomer or student? Where does this person hang out? What are this person's hobbies?

Create a portrait of your ideal client in great detail.

Why burn resources to sell to numerous people when only a select few would benefit from your business? This is the method of M.U.D. and it only produces frustration and discouragement.

If your business feels like it is stuck in "mud"….quit wasting your most valuable asset…"time"… on M.U.D. marketing.

If you continue trying to sell to everyone, you will end up selling to no one. And think of the cleaning bills to get that mess out of the carpet and off the wallpaper.

Generally, people rarely even notice that an economic recession is happening because the administration is usually swift to act on it, and because of its power they are able to stabilize the nation's economy before much damage is done. All the same, recently, the efforts of the administration and their plans were not sufficient to stop this downward spiral of the economic system.

The increasing prices in fossil fuels impacting on the costs of primary commodities, individuals are scrimping on things they normally purchase and this has seriously impacted on companies, leading to unemployment and fiscal strains. The realty industry has also crashed leaving numerous foreclosed properties because people just can't pay the monthly premium anymore.

The aforementioned goes with the bank and insurance spheres who are also feeling the heat of the economic recession. Here are some of the affairs that you should know about how a recession affects your daily life and the problems it can do to you if you don't watch out. It can force unemployment upon you – economic downturn is a period well-known for job losses when demand for products diminishes and businesses lose their money – the only way they can exist is to reduce their labor costs. They can rationalize this as there will also be reduction in production, so if you are one of the unlucky few who are employed by a business experiencing such losses, you might lose your job.

In order to ready for this situation, look into the financial strength of your employer and take heed to the work grapevine relating to prospective workers losing their jobs. Usually, you will know if a firm is losing money so if you feel that your employer is losing money, make a support plan just in case you become jobless. This is especially true if you are employed in the assembly line. It can make life worse – prices will now and again be high throughout an economic downturn because a lower supply of products will cause a rise in the costs. Although the administration will try to assist out by presenting tax reduction, this may not help especially if there have been many people made redundant.

Common sense indicates that most people will to cut down on their day to day expenses, cutting back dramatically on their normal nights out – however, it has been observed that movie ticket sales increase during a recession period. This is perhaps because people want to forget their problems for a while and just savor the world of the make believe. It is not forever – one hopeful thing that people can look forward to is the fact that economic downturn is not forever. As mentioned before, recession is part of a cycle and when you are down, the only direction you can go is up, that is why, for the meantime the destination during these tough times is to ride the waves and survive.

On Day 6 of the GTD Thirty Day Challenge, I am going to talk about how I set up my tickler file and exactly how to set up a tickler file.

After listening to some of David Allen's conversations, I think he uses 43 folders for his tickler file. The 43 folders are 12 for each month and 31 for each day. If it is January, I'd have 31 folder into the January folder of my months. After each day, I'd take that day's folder and move it behind the next month, in this case February. If it's the 20th, the previous folder for days 1-19 would be behind the February folder now.

How does this work? Let's say I got a bill today that I was due on February 3. Since it's important that I remember, I would put it in the February 3rd folder. When February 3 arrives, I would look in my tickler file and it reminds me to pay the bill.

I really do not like using 43 folders for my tickler file. For starters, it's hard to remember to check it every day. People then have to remember to check it and they'll start to ask themselves "how do I remember to check my tickler file?" The next reason is it is very bulky and not very portable. Finally, when you move the daily folders behind the next month, you have to remember to move the items in that months folders to the proper day.

If you use GTD though, a tickler file is essential to set up because there are things in the future that you need to remember. The folder type of tickler is perfect if you have a lot of physical type items you use as reminders. For most people, their work doesn't create the kind of physical items that really justify a folder tickler file and I suggest setting up a tickler file differently to address the problems above.

How I Set Up My Tickler File

The first thing to do is to create a plastic folder for your briefcase called "Waiting For" and put all the things you need to remember in the future in it.

Next, I created a folder in my email account called "Yahoo Reminders". You'll see this folder if you look at the image of my email folder structure in How To Set Up Your GTD Email. I then set up a filter for all Yahoo Reminders to go into this specific folder and not in my inbox for processing.

The last component is Yahoo calendar. I put any item I need to remember and enter it as an all day event. I attach and email reminder to it that sends me a reminder 2 days ahead of the day I need to remember it. As a second reminder, a text is sent too.

In the above example, the bill I got needed to be remembered on February 3rd. I enter the all day event on the third like "Pay very important bill" and by default it sends me an email reminder two days before it occurs. The actual physical bill goes into my "Waiting For" folder in my briefcase.

On February 1st, an email is sent ot me that reminds me I have to pay a bill on the third. The email bypasses my inbox and is filtered into my Yahoo reminder folder. As a backup, I get a text message too. Using text and email both gives me a backup in case I can't check my Yahoo reminders folder I then have a reminder sitting on my blackberry too. I review my reminders each day on my Blackberry and if I am at my computer, I review them too.

This system is an extremely portable and streamlined tickler file. Everything reminds me on it's own and I don't have to move items around in my tickler file. Email reminders are awesome to remind you of things you have to do and you have no idea how much this helps your productivity until after you use them. If you use 43 folders, I'd still suggest using email reminders 100% to improve your GTD setup.

Once I learned how to set up a tickler file in this fashion, it improved my effectiveness at remember everything to a complete level.

My father used to say that there were two kinds of people in the world – those that are organized and those that aren't. Maybe that was true years ago, but I see it differently. I view organization in two ways: effective or ineffective. If what you are happy with your type of organization – why change?

I think we spend too much time thinking about what other people think of our ability to organize. We can be very judgmental. Have you ever made assumptions about someone whose organizational style is different than your own?

What matters most is that you are happy with your organizational skills. Whether you fold and color code your socks and underwear or alphabetize soup cans, or drop everything (clean clothes, dirty clothes, magazines, uneaten food, etc.) into a big pile on the floor; you need to give yourself permission to be who you are and not let the opinion of others' upset you. However, if you wish you were more effective. Keep reading!

Anyway, I digress. The focus of this article is to offer a simple plan for organizing yourself. The first idea is to help with organizing things. The second is a suggestion about organizing your time. The ideas below can work equally well for a school, a house, or a work space.

Use The Three Box System To Organize Your Things

First, get three boxes. In large letters label the boxes:

Box 1, the first box is the 'THROW AWAY' box. Box 2, the second box is the 'GIVE AWAY' box. Box 3, the third box is the 'PUT AWAY' box.

Now start to sort through a cluttered area. In sorting you will find it useful to ask yourself three questions to determine which box an item goes into:

1. Have I used this item in the past year? a. Yes? – Put it away. b. No? – Throw or give away 2. Does the item have sentimental or monetary value? a. Yes? – Is it something you want to keep or is it time to pass it on to someone else who would appreciate it? b. No? – Throw or give away. If you want less clutter in your space, you will absolutely need to let go of some stuff! 3. Do I know someone who could use this? a. Yes? – Great! Give it to them. If you think you might need it sometime, just ask them if you would be able to borrow it if you ever need it. b. No? – You can always donate items to the Salvation Army or another charitable society.

WARNING – Beware of the phrase 'You never know when this will come in handy.' You'll never be able to throw or give anything away because it's too easy to convince yourself that you are being prudent by keeping everything.

Organize Your Time By Creating A To Do List

When you think about it, we are all given the same 24 hours in a day. I'm always amazed at the choices – and consequences – that people experience. I wonder how many of us would make different choices if 'had to do it all over again'?

One simple thing you can do to get a better control of your time is to create a daily to do list. It doesn't matter what you write the list on – as long as you keep it with you. The idea is that you write down all the things you need to get done as they pop up throughout the day including appointments, errands, grocery list items, etc.

In the morning – before things get busy – review your tasks for the day and pick two or three other things that you can complete that day. You won't always get everything done – just be pleased that you accomplished something! If there are chores that keep getting shuffled to the bottom of the list – that's okay. There are days when you have nothing to do – that's when you go after those types of tasks.

Ask yourself if there is anything on your list that you can get someone else to do. Sometimes we think we have to do everything ourselves; which is usually not the only solution.

Organization Can Become A Habit

Whatever you are used to doing is a habit – and it will take a concentrated effort on your part to change. It has been said that it takes 21 days to replace a habit. Why do most New Year's Resolutions fade? Because we don't focus on them long enough to become a new habit.

Practice, Practice, and More Practice

So, in your journey to become more effective with your time and/or space be aware that it takes about a month of constant, conscious repetition to make a lasting personal change.