Strategies for Success in Nursing School From Start to Finish

Embarking on a nursing career requires unique preparation and strategies for success. The purpose of this text is to cover information to help any college student succeed, with additional information specific for both pre-nursing students and students in a formal nursing program. The project members hope that this targeted content will resonate with nursing students as they begin and continue their educational careers.

This chapter reviews key skills to manage your time while in school. This chapter is best viewed electronically because there are interactive elements contained within the chapter. If you use a print copy, there will be placeholders with a website address that you can type into a browser like Google Chrome or Firefox to view and complete the interactive portions of this chapter.

Please contact the UTA Libraries if you are without internet access. There may be options available to you depending on your needs and the current availability of appropriate technologies.

Learning to manage your time is an important and powerful skill to learn in college. How you manage your time shapes your life’s path. Your use of time can be the difference between meeting your long term goals and missing the mark. Focusing your attention and time on the things that matter most ensures you are achieving the life you want. This chapter aims to help you accomplish that!

How you are currently spending your time? Understanding your use of time allows you to reprioritize so that the things that are most important to you are getting appropriate attention. This is best done before you start planning your course schedule each semester, but you can do this any time you want better control over your use of time.

WHAT IS PROCRASTINATION?

Definition: To delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay (Steel, 2007). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure.

WHY DO WE PROCRASTINATE?

Procrastination is not a “one size fits all” problem. We procrastinate for a variety of different reasons. The first step in tackling procrastination is to do some detective work – to figure out – without judgment – why it might be that you procrastinate.

REASONS FOR PROCRASTINATION

People procrastinate for a variety of different reasons:

1. Not being sure of how to do the task at hand. If a task seems difficult, or if you’re not sure you know how to complete it, it is natural to avoid tackling it.
2. The task to be done doesn’t interest you, and it seems preferable to work on tasks (e.g. other courses) that are more in line with your personal interests. You may lack motivation to work on the task.
3. Fear of not doing well on the task. Trying hard at a task and failing might seem worse than failing because you didn’t try. Often a root cause of this type of procrastination is perfectionism.
4. Or, you might fear the opposite. Some people fear being too successful, because the result of this success is that people will expect more of you the next time. Identifying the cause of procrastination can help you move towards a solution. Here are some suggested solutions for each of the four causes mentioned above.