By applying these techniques, you can avoid complete failure and regain your former success in an astoundingly short time.

#1 Over Communicate

The moment you realize that you will be late for the deadline, let the appropriate parties know.  Not only will this begin the path toward your recovery, but it will give them time to adjust their schedule and (hopefully) avoid missing any of their deadlines due to your delay.  If there is anything worse than being late yourself, it is being responsible for making someone else late.

#2 Take Responsibility

It didn’t work in third grade, and it won’t work now.  Even if your dog really did eat your homework, it actually doesn’t matter (yet).  From your professor’s point of view, you are late with your assignment.  Passing the blame will not make you look any better but will actually prejudice the decision maker against you.  Take responsibility and apologize for your error in not anticipating the potential problems.

#2.5 Explain What Went Wrong (optional)

If your dog truly did eat your homework, that might be worth explaining… after you have claimed responsibility for the problem.  Make it clear that you are not trying to excuse the delay, but simply explaining why it happened.

More importantly, mention how you will avoid this particular and similar problems to ensure timely delivery in the future.

#3 Try To Get A New Deadline

While this may not be possible, you never know until you try.  Explain what you have left to complete and how long you expect to need to finish.  Don’t try to get too much extra time, but don’t under estimate the time needed either – you definitely do not want to miss the extended deadline.

#4 Go For Plan B

If you are unable to negotiate an extension, it is time to move to Plan B.  Look for other things that can be cut to give you the time needed to meet the looming deadline.  Perhaps you have too much on your plate and need to remove a few things.  Perhaps this is only a short-term time crunch, and you need to temporarily cut some of the lower priority items.  Either way, now is the time to look for acceptable sacrifices.  Like an expert chess master, look for ways to minimize the damage or even avoid it completely.

#5 Never Miss Another Deadline

Whether you have successfully salvaged your deadline or not, don’t let this failure get you down.  A life without failure is a life without opportunity for success.  Recognize where you made your mistake and create an action plan that will enable you to avoid repeating the mistake.

This particular incident will soon pass, but the lesson learned can be a life-long help… if you let it.

Conclusion

Whether you turn in your paper too late at school or show up to a presentation at work empty handed, the real test is in our response.  Everyone makes mistakes, but only a few recover gracefully.

What deadlines have you missed, and how did you react?

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Because of this, college is the perfect time to form good habits that you might not already have. While the knowledge you gain in college will be important to your career, forming these habits will be just as crucial to your career and to your life in general.

#1 Do it today

Procrastination keeps great people mediocre. If you can conquer your desire to put things off, you will be able to accomplish much more than most people while maintaining a much more stress-free schedule. Because you have a bit more freedom on your assignment times in college than you had in high school, this is the perfect time to learn self-discipline and get things done early. Don’t do it tomorrow.

#2 Be punctual

There may well be a great divide between college and the real world, but this is one of the principles that bridges the gap. No one – not your professors and not your fellow student athletes – want you to show up late to your engagements. Learn to respect the time of those around you, and you will have done much to jumpstart your career.

#3 Work hard

As important as punctuality is, good old fashioned hard work contributes even more to a successful education… and career. Grades are important, but don’t simply settle for good grades. Instead, aim for great grades and – even more important – a thorough working understanding. Your grades might be useful in landing a job, but your real learning – not your all-night cramming session – will help you keep it and move higher.

#4 Invest wisely

During high school, time can seem almost unlimited. As you move into college, however, a greater number of activities will converge to fill your time. Not only will your actual school be more difficult and require more time, but you might have a job on the side to balance with extracurricular sports and student clubs. If you are used to saying “yes”, you just might find yourself overwhelmed and needing at least seven more hours in a day. Make a continual effort to keep your plate just underfilled. You will be better off doing a few things well, than growing stressed while being mediocre at many things.

#5 Learn to enjoy learning

During the first eighteen years of our life, learning was a requirement of living. During at least four years of college, learning will still be a requirement. Once you finish your degree, however, you will no longer have a teacher or professor breathing down your neck with an assignment deadline. Will you continue learning for learning’s sake, or will you happily enjoy the extended summer vacation? Rather than simply “getting through” college, cultivate a love of learning that will help you grow your entire life.

What habits are you forming?

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College only comes once, so make sure you are ready to ace the first try.

Myth #1: College is much harder than high school

While your senior year of college will certainly be more academically advanced than your freshman year of high school, starting college doesn’t mean that the gradual increase in difficulty will suddenly accelerate. On the contrary, the first two years of college are primarily a review of the last two years of high school.

Completing college requires a fair degree of diligence, but the requirements are not nearly impossible.

Myth #2: Everyone will gain the “Freshman 15”

Due to the proliferation of fairly unhealthy but easily available cafeteria food, many incoming freshmen do gain weight. However, a combination of exercise and good eating habits can easily help you avoid this problem.

Not only will these two habits enable you to conquer the “freshman 15”, but they will also help you be more energetic and productive.

Myth #3: Everyone needs a car

While many campuses are filled with cars, this need not be the case. Most of the time, everything is easily accessible by walking or bicycling. By putting off driving for a few years, you will be able to concentrate more time on studying while also getting more exercise and enjoying the outdoors.

Look around your campus, and you will most likely see a number of students using human-powered transportation.

Myth #4: A degree guarantees your dream job

Although this may have been more the case thirty years ago (it never was completely true), a college degree is only one factor in landing your dream job. Although a degree definitely is important, many students actually find work outside of their majors, while others still do struggle with unemployment.

Earning your degree will decrease your chance of unemployment while improving your opportunities for a dream job, but a diploma is not a one-way ticket to success. Look for internships that will improve your resume and expand your abilities.

Myth #5: More extracurriculars are better

We all envy the students who seem to effortlessly juggle difficult classes and multiple sports along with a few clubs and internships for good measure. The fact is, however, that more is not always better.

By focusing on one or two extracurriculars at a time, you can do those well before moving on to the next one. In the end, you will be much better off excelling in a few activities than getting by in a infinite number of them.

Myth #6: Finals week has to be misery

After a long semester of light studying, finals week is upon us! Suddenly, everyone buckles down, pulls all-nighters, and generally maxes out their stress levels in an effort to pass their exams. Sound familiar?

While certain classes may require significant amounts of review during finals week, the majority of your studying should be spread throughout the semester. If, after all your best efforts, you still find yourself overwhelmed, you can still use careful planning to make finals week stress-free.

Myth #7: Online degrees are always fake

While certain online schools are certainly nothing but degree mills, many modern students are increasingly turning to distance learning as an alternative to provide flexibility, alleviate funding problems, or learn at a faster pace.

Through the use of CLEP tests and coaching services like CollegePlus! (disclaimer: CollegePlus! owns this blog), students today can earn their fully-accredited degrees from home.  Unfortunately, most online programs focus on bachelor’s degrees, so it still can be difficult to find a good master’s program online.

What is the strangest myth you once believed about college?

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By applying these five expert search techniques, you can save time and learn more.

1. Search for phrases

I find this technique particularly useful when searching for an article or website that I had found earlier, but then forgotten. If I can just remember a few keywords in the proper order, the phrase search technique will help me uncover the correct result much more quickly.

For instance, if I am trying to recover an article I read about study groups, but I can’t remember the name or the website’s name, simply adding double quotation marks can make the task much easier.

Example: “puzzling over the difficulty”

2. Exclude certain words

Search results are constantly fine tuned by Google to provide the most accurate results to the largest number of searchers.  Normally, this makes for excellent results, but, when your search is slightly unusual, it can lead to problems.  By excluding certain words, though, you can easily solve that problem.

For instance, when researching for a paper on dolphins in the state of Florida, the Miami Dolphins sports team will clutter the results.  Once I exclude the term “Miami”, however, my results become much more accurate.

Example: florida dolphins -miami

3. Search for a quick definition

In the modern world of instant results, looking words up in a dictionary can seem tediously slow – causing us to miss valuable opportunities to expand our vocabulary.  By harnessing the power of Google, however, you can save time and expand your vocabulary.

Just search for the word “define” followed by the word you would like to learn.

Example: define scholar

4. Search for a weather forecast

Wondering how you should dress for the day? Curious about what to pack for the trip home?  Using Google, you can find answers to both those questions in a matter of seconds.

Simply enter the word “weather”, and it will automatically provide the current temperature, weather, wind speed, and forecast for your computer’s location.  To search for a different city, just search for that city’s name or zip code followed by the word “weather”.

Example: weather or pensacola weather

5. Search for the correct spelling

We know how important it is to maintain the proper spelling of words, but, unfortunately, not all programs have spell checkers included.

Before the world collapses (or you email a misspelled word), try searching Google for a spelling correction.  Just search for the closest phonetic spelling, and the built in search suggest will usually give you the corrected spelling… all in a matter of seconds!

Example: brellant

Bonus: Recover missing websites

Ultimately, even the most expert searchers are foiled if the page they are searching for is temporarily offline… or are they?

Thanks to Google, problematic or offline websites can’t stop the best search manipulators.  By using Google’s cache feature, you can pull up the latest version of the page directly from Google’s servers.

Just click the angle brackets next to the wanted search result to view the site preview; then click the link labeled “Cached”.  While you will not be able to browse internal links on the site (unless you search for them in Google also), this cached page will let you see all text and some images from that particular article.

Example: cached version of this website’s homepage

Conclusion

By learning a few of the most useful searching techniques, you can learn more (the goal of college) while saving time (a college student’s most precious commodity).  What more could we ask for?

What are your favorite search tips?

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Thankfully, with a little forethought and planning, even the busiest student can vastly decrease the chance of missing a deadline.

1. Don’t Overcommit

In our modern world, people who do “everything” are often looked up to as paragons of productivity. In the long-term, however, the real achievers are those who focus on a few things at a time. In what Cal Newport describes as “serial accomplishments”, elite students do one thing at a time rather than many things at once.

When planning your next semester, definitely make it challenging… but don’t make it impossible.

2. Document… Repeatedly

As you move through your various activities, take the time to keep a complete record of all your deadlines and commitments. Depending on your personal style, this might mean writing it on physical paper – such as a calendar or planner – or it might mean recording it in a computer application – such as Google calendar or Remember The Milk.

For extra security, use a couple of methods. Perhaps your planner would record your target dates, while Google calendar will email you when there is still time for an all-nighter.

3. Plan To Finish Early

Rather than waiting until the last minute, set aside enough time to finish the assignment as soon as you get it. Not only does this give you more buffer time, but the success of finishing early will also give your willpower a boost that will help you do even better next time.

If you are like me and can’t remember the last time you finished a project more than twelve hours before the deadline, try to find a study partner who will hold you accountable.

4. Anticipate Problems

Whatever you do, expect something to go wrong. The library will close, the wireless will crash, your friends will invite you to a day in the park, or the dorms will burn down. As an elite student, you need to expect the unexpected… and still meet your deadline.
Give yourself enough time to get the project completed even when the world comes crashing down around your ears.

5. Be Ready With Plan B

But what happens when you have two weeks of work and one night to finish?

It’s time for Plan B. Following the 80/20 rule, quickly analyze the best way to spend your time and focus on getting the best possible result. Perhaps you will not have the best essay in your class, but you can likely avoid failing. Determine, if possible, what your professor wants most and do your best to supply that.

Conclusion

Following this simple process will take very little time while drastically reducing stress. With the reduction of stress, you will be able to focus more fully which will lead to more accomplishments and even less stress in a spiral of success.

How do you remember deadlines?

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Depending on the members and atmosphere, study groups can be either help a student grow or can pull a student down.

In today’s post, I discuss the potential advantages of joining a study group.  Remember, though, that these advantages are only present in good study groups.

1. Procrastination Solution

Because study groups meet at regular times, attending students cannot procrastinate.

If alone, a student might postpone studying until the night before class. When in a study group, however, students have to be present at a specific time, and they are not able to procrastinate (unless they skip the study group completely).

If you struggle with procrastination, a study group might just be the solution for you!

2. Learn Faster

Working together, students in study groups can generally learn faster than students working alone.

For instance, some part of the textbook that seems completely confusing to you could be quite clear to another student.  In a study group, instead of spending valuable time puzzling over the difficulty, you can learn quickly by simply asking a question.

In addition, you can help your fellow students also when they have difficulties understanding something that you do understand.

3. Get New Perspectives

If you study by yourself, you will always see your material from the same perspective – yours.

While this may not be a problem, getting fresh perspectives on a topic can help you learn it more thoroughly.

Study groups are the perfect places to find these new perspectives. As you listen and ask questions, you will soon start noticing a wide variety of different viewpoint on the same idea.

This will force you to think more about your position and will, therefore, develop your critical thinking skills while helping you study.

4. Learn New Study Skills

In addition to learning new perspectives on a topic, you can also find new study techniques.

During the college years, each student develops his own particular study methods. While yours may work excellently, you probably can still find ways to improve your learning abilities and sharpen your mind.

By joining a study group, you will have opportunity to observe a wide variety of study methods in action. After considering the pros and cons, you can improve your own study regimen by incorporating the best methods with your own.

In addition, you can help your other study members improve by sharing your favorite study tricks also.

5. Breaks The Monotony

Studying by yourself, especially for long periods of time, can become a monotonous activity.

However, by joining a study group, you can break this monotony… and learn faster!

Because of the social aspect of a study group, you will always have someone to discuss the topic with when you start struggling or find the topic tedious.

In addition, the auditory factor of study groups can help auditory learners and students who dislike the silence of studying alone.

If you find some class particularly tedious, consider joining a study group to make it more enjoyable.

6. Fill In Learning Gaps

Study groups provide an excellent opportunity to fill in gaps in your notes.

By comparing notes with other students, you can evaluate your accuracy, fix any errors, and get ideas for better note taking.

If, on the other hand, you are a great note taker, you can help other students who had note taking problems fix their mistakes and learn better techniques.

Conclusion

Before you go and join a study group, remember that all groups are not created equal.  Choose your companions carefully or study by yourself.

Have you joined study groups?  What are your thoughts?

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Unfortunately, many college students view budgets just as they do taxes – as financial nuisances to be avoided if possible. If you truly want to become financially free, however, you need to learn to budget successfully.

Follow the six tips mentioned here, and you will be well on your way.

1. Budget Realistically

If you have never successfully used a budget, don’t set yourself up for failure by creating unreasonably high goals when you start. For instance, a person who normally spends hundreds of dollars a month on coffee should not suddenly set his budget to only allow for five dollars a month. A rule like that is almost certain to be broken.

Instead, make your budget reasonably similar to your current spending patterns and change it slowly – over the period of a few months.

2. Know Why You Budget

Motivation is an important key to successful budgeting. If you are simply keeping a budget because a friend said it was “a good idea”, you are not likely to keep budgeting for long.

Before you start budgeting, answer the important question: “Why?”

Depending on your situation, the answer could be to pay off debt, save for retirement, or get more control over your money.

3. Save For Your Future

When you create your budget categories, remember to allocate as much money as possible for savings.

Although retirement may seem far in the distant future, it will come all to quickly if you do not start saving now. If you just put aside a little money during the early years of college, it will multiply exponentially by the time you retire. If, however, you do not invest early, you will have to save much more later on with less result.

Obviously, for many debt free college students saving money may seem impossible. However, if you eliminate all unnecessary expenses, you can almost always save something.

Saving even just a penny per month is better than saving nothing.

4. Budget Luxury Items

To make you budget achievable, you need to dedicate a certain amount of money to spending.

Depending on how much money you spend currently, the amount funneled to this fund will vary.

When setting your budget, be careful to avoid setting this category either unrealistically low or extravagantly high. Look for the happy middle.

Once your discretionary spending limit is set, determine to never spend more – even if your favorite store has a 60% off sale.

5. Prepare For Emergencies

Car breakdown. Computer failure. Bicycle theft. Though never planned, unexpected emergencies should be anticipated in a budget. If you have every penny of you money dedicated to some use, what will you do in an emergency?

The key is an “emergency fund”.

Built up over a period of months, this budget category should always have about a thousand dollars. Then, when an emergency comes it will not break the bank – just the emergency fund.

Always work hard to keep this fund full and ready for action.

6. Watch The Little Things

The biggest, most deadly danger to your new budget seems small and insignificant. Little expenses are actually public enemy number one.

Two dollars for candy, three for a snack, and you will soon be faced with a budget collapse.

As one of my favorite authors, J. C. Ryle, said, “A small leak will sink a great ship, and a small spark will kindle a great fire.”

Beware of the little expenses that are not included in your budget!

By following these six tips for budgeting, you are well on your way to being a debt-free and financially-free student!

Do you use a budget?

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Because college students are meeting so many new people, college can be an excellent time for networking. However, a distracted student can also successfully complete all of college without building a strong network.

To make the most of your networking chances and develop your own network, follow the five tips below.

#1 Create Your Personal “Elevator Pitch”

An elevator pitch, also known as a marketing message, is simply a short description of your company… or, in this case, yourself. The term “elevator pitch” refers to the brevity – about the time of an elevator trip.

In networking, you will use your elevator pitch to quickly (in about one sentence) explain the who, what, when, where, and why of your personal career to a new acquaintance.

Every person should have their own descriptive, short elevator pitch ready at all times.

#2 Use a Professional Business Card

Even before you start looking for a job, you should design your personal business card.

Using a graphic design program or even a simple word processor, you can create a clean, simple card in minutes that will reap many long-term benefits.

When you print your card, go the extra mile to produce it on high quality paper. This card will be your representative, so you want it to look as professional as possible.

Always remember to keep a stock of these cards handy in case you meet someone new.

#3 Follow the 80/20 Rule

In order to build strong relationships, you need to understand how to manage a conversation in such a way that the other person feels important and honored.

To do this, try to listen about eighty percent of the time and only talk about twenty percent. Obviously, this will not always be possible, but it is a good goal.

#4 Remember Names

Another very important key to building a strong network is remembering people’s names. When you meet someone, take note of their name.

A person will be pleasantly surprised if you remember their name the next time you meet, and your relationship will be improved.

Improving your memory is an important part of building a strong network.

#5 Ask Open-ended Questions

Asking open-ended questions will help you get to know a person better, and it will also help you follow the 80/20 rule.

Ask questions related to your interests and career, and you will likely learn quite a bit from people you meet.

Since I like reading, I often ask people what books they have read recently. Through this, I have received many useful book recommendations.

Use open questions to build a relationship and to improve your learning.

What are your tips for networking?

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Since your resume will be a representative of you – often to people who have never met you personally – you need to design your resume to create a good first impression and interest your potential employer.

To make your resume as good as possible, remember to apply these eight tips as you write.

#1 Be Formal and Concise

When writing your resume, do not write it in a first-person, informal style. While this may seem natural to you, your potential employer will find it sloppy and distracting.

For example, do not write, “I built a completely remodeled website for XYZ Company.” Instead, you should say, “Redesigned website for XYZ Company.”

By writing in this short, concise style, you will make your resume more persuasive and readable.

#2 Use Specifics

You can also improve your resume by including specific details that show exactly what you did.

Drawing from our last example, you can improve your sentence even more by writing, “Doubled sales over a three month period by redesigning website for XYZ Company.”

This sentence is highly persuasive because it communicates specific details in a concise manner.

#3 Be Personal

Although formality is important, you need to avoid being impersonal. The main way you can avoid this trap is by not trying to sound impressive by over using keywords and industry jargon.

While some jargon is good and should be used, too much simply makes you sound bloated and impersonal.

#4 Remove Irrelevant Information

Since you, as a college student, probably do not have much experience to list on your resume, it can be tempting to fill the empty space with irrelevant information. Resist the urge.

Unless directly related to your profession, your hobbies should not be listed on your resume. The same goes for personal details such as age and marital status.

Including irrelevant information will make you look inexperienced and will make it harder for you potential employer to find the truly important parts of your resume.

Only include information on your resume that will help you get an interview. Remove the filler content.

#5 Spell Check Manually

It goes without saying that you should spell check your resume. After all, if this short document will represent you, shouldn’t you make it as perfect as possible?

However, many writers forget to manually spell check. In the age of computers, most spelling errors are automatically caught by the computer, but some are not.

What if you accidentally wrote “their” instead of “there”?

Check through your resume manually to find any embarrassing typos.

#6 Check The Grammar

In addition to checking your spelling, you also need to evaluate your grammar. Depending on your language skills, you many need to get someone else to help you with this, but do not leave your grammar unchecked.

Do you really want to lose your dream job just because your resume has a sentence fragment?

#7 Get It Proofread

After you have checked your resume for spelling and grammar errors, it is time to have someone else proofread it for you.

Preferably, find someone in the same industry as you so that they can help you use the proper terminology.

If that is impossible, find someone who understands writing and can help you catch any silly mistakes.

Getting a fresh perspective on your resume can help you perfect it.

#8 Format Properly

Once the content of your resume is completed, remember to format it properly.

In general, you should have plenty of white space, organized content, clean headers, and readable text.

However, specifics can vary from industry to industry (especially if you are in graphics design), so check with someone in the industry.

By applying these eight tips to your resume, you can increase your likelihood of getting an interview… and a job.

Have you written your resume yet? If so, what are your tips?

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What makes the difference between and ultra-producer and an under-producer?

The answer is simple: time management.

Learning how to effectively manage your time will help you accomplish more, enjoy more, and stress less. In fact, properly using your time will take you far down the road to academic success!

If you want to do more in less time, apply these tips to your own life.

#1 Plan Ahead

Each night, before you go to bed, think over your goals and priorities and determine your schedule for the next day.

By planning ahead, you stop yourself from wasting time wondering what to do, and you also save yourself from the trap of devoting too much time to a low-priority project.

#2 Early To Rise

As Benjamin Franklin rightly stated, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

By taking advantage of the early morning hours, you can accomplish quite a bit before most others even wake up!

Getting this early start will help you stay disciplined and motivated throughout the day.

#3 Set Priorities

Instead of attacking your tasks in random order, set priorities.

This will keep you from wasting time on unnecessary tasks and from accidentally leaving a critical project uncompleted.

For example, my bicycle could use a good washing, but, when I set my priorities yesterday, I realize that I should be spending my time on writing this article instead. My bicycle can be washed another day, but this article needs to be published today.

#4 Establish Routines

If you complete your tasks in different orders every day, you will waste precious time trying to remember what to do next. If you, instead, establish a routine, you can increase your efficiency and have more available time.

#5 Use a Daily To-Do List

This is an idea that I have been personally practicing for the last couple of months. Rather than simply trying to remember what I need to accomplish, I write it down in a small notebook.

This keeps me focused during the day and helps me to evaluate my progress at night.

#6 Minimize Downtime

Rather than wasting the time spent standing in lines and waiting at the doctor’s, try to find ways to use that time.

For instance, you can take a book with you to the doctor’s office and read while you are waiting. If you forget to bring something, you can always plan your schedule in your head or talk with someone.

The key is to find something productive to do rather than simply watching time pass.

#7 Take Breaks

Although it may seem counter-productive, taking breaks can actually help you accomplish more.

For instance, a student studying for two hours straight will accomplish some, but a student who breaks that time into twenty-five minute intervals with exercise breaks between will likely learn much more.

Taking short breaks can help clear your mind and prepare it for more information.

#8 Minimize Distractions

The modern college student is assailed on all sides: email, cell phones, Facebook, and Twitter all call for your attention and distract from the project at hand.

One of the most important steps to effectively using your time is to remove these distractions. Only complete these activities at regularly scheduled times (remember tip #4) and unplug for the rest of the day. Although you will not see your new emails instantly, you will be much more productive.

By applying these tips to your life, you can make the most of your available time. Your time is valuable: use it with care!

What is your favorite time management tip?

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