Wichita State students have their hands full in their busy college lives—from managing fulltime class schedules to trying to fit time with friends into their evenings filled with studying and put off homework.

Now with finals coming up it’s more important than ever that students have a good grasp of how to manage their time. Here are four tips provided to you with help from WSU’s Office for Faculty Development and Student Success.

1. Set priorities

It’s important for you to figure out what your most important tasks are first and then begin to work on them in order. Look at your academic, personal, family, and job priorities and then rank them in importance.

It is also vital that when doing this you are honest about setting your priorities. Separate what you want to do from what you need to do. Call of Duty can wait another hour when you have an essay due at midnight.

2. Keep a weekly planner

It sounds simple at first, but keep a planner with your events scheduled throughout the week can help you visualize how much time you really have.

When making your list you should remember to include more than just birthdays and anniversaries. Write down all of your classes, due dates for assignments, study times, and what times are freed up for friends.

Doing these things can help you plan out more accurately how much time you really have, and can be made easier be modern technology. Use your smartphone or an internet calendar service to keep you on track and send you reminders for important things.

3. Plan specific study times

Going along with making a weekly planner is the need to plan out your study times. It’s easy to put off your homework till the last minute but late nights spent reading thick textbooks can be avoided by doing the work ahead of time and spreading it out.

The better reason to do this is so that when it’s time to study before the test you aren’t seeing the material for the first time, but instead are just refreshing yourself.

4. Take advantage of small amounts of time

This works in two ways. The first way is that there is often small downtimes you have throughout the day that can be used to help you in other ways.

You can use the time before class waiting on the professor to study your lecture notes instead.

The other way is to double up on your tasks so that you can accomplish multiple things at the same time. Get the audiobook version of your textbook and listen to them while at the gym and you’ll find your usually wasted time becoming more productive.

Following these tips can help you start to get ready for the most stressful time of the semester, finals.