It is well known that time management and goal setting are two of the most important skills a college student needs to be successful. What is less well known is how these skills relate to other aspects of a student's life, including sleep and stress levels. In this study, Think Tank researchers conducted an experimental study to determine how time management and goal setting skills affect these measures.

Methods

Unlike most studies that the Psychology Research Think Tank conducts, this study utilized an experimental design rather than a correlational design. This means that our research team directly manipulated our independent variables (time management/goal setting skills) to determine whether better time management actually causes life improvement, rather than simply seeing if they correlate.

To do this, we had 145 university students in Dr. George's PY-355 class participate in an experimental pre-test/post-test study.  The students filled out a weekly Baseline Chart for 5 weeks detailing how much time they spent attending class, studying, exercising, working, etc. On this Baseline Chart, students also rated different outcomes, such as emotional anxiety, physical stress, level of procrastination, feelings of guilt, quality of sleep, etc., on a scale of 1-7.  

After the 5 weeks, Dr. George went over some time management and goal setting strategies with the students. For the next 5 weeks, the students filled out an Educational Outcomes Chart, which was the same as the Baseline Chart, as well as time management and goal charts where students would block out activities to match their goals. For example, a student may have a goal of studying 5 hours a week on their goal chart, they would then block out these 5 hours on their time management chart, which is a schedule for the week. At the end of the week, students would update their goal charts to add the amount of time they actually spent doing each activity.

Results

After controlling for students who were already very proficient in time management and goal setting (rating 6s and 7s on the Baseline Chart), therefore having little room for improvement, we saw that the other students improved in efficiency, were less distracted, felt less guilty and stressed, enjoyed activities more, felt more confident, and spent more time doing the things they enjoyed from pre-test to post-test.