The Lie of No Time: Why Students Fail Before They Begin
Kill the excuses and take back your time with this simple template
“What are you doing, dude? I see that you like class. You participate in skills. You ask good questions. What the heck? What’s going on? When do you study and what does that study time look like?”
I brought this student over to discuss his grades. He wasn’t doing so hot but I KNEW he could do better. I liked the guy. He participated in class and seemed to truly enjoy being there. He’s one of those students you want to see make it through the EMT program.
He looked down at the table. I couldn’t tell if it was shame or if he just straight up didn’t know how to answer.
“I don’t really set aside time, per say. I kinda just study whenever I can.”
Yeah, that’s not a plan but it is an oft-quoted refrain for students with marginal or failing performances.
And, let me be clear, I hate being the bad guy inking down F’s but the evaluations are a mirror of their competency. So, I don’t feel too awful.
The trouble this young dude has is the same trouble I’ve seen for over a decade. It’s just gotten worse.
Manage Your Time or It’ll Manage You
He wasn’t managing his time. That was part of his problem. The other part of his problem is he didn’t really know how to fix it because, you see, many students I come across are ill-prepared for the academic venture and the time it should consume that is EMS training (EMT, Advanced EMT, and Paramedic).
And, I think that’s because the skill sets that students used to achieve success in high school or other academic pursuits are not as useful or effective for EMS (and really any healthcare) training.
It’s not entirely their fault. They normalized a specific strategy that worked for English, history, math, and science but EMS is a science coupled with a trade. The reading comprehension, study strategies, and test taking skills need to be updated and optimized for success.
But, before ANY of that can happen, the first thing students MUST learn to do is manage time.
What Are You Doing With Your Time?
This is the absolute FIRST question I ask every student who presents with academic issues.
Time is a finite resource and should be treated as such.
The problem with time, as I see it, is that most students arrive with some exposure to “time management” from high school, but it’s shallow and inadequate. It never demanded the level of planning required to balance the real pressures of adult life… classes, work, sports, and, if they’re lucky, a social life.
They had a taste of it, but not the discipline. And when college or advanced training demands two, three, or four times the commitment, they find themselves unprepared for what school truly requires.
168 Hours is All You Get
168 hours. That’s what you get each week. You have the same time as every great thinker, every exhausted worker, every dropout, every surgeon, every poet.
The brutal truth is this: if you don’t know where those hours go, you will waste them.
Most students live under two illusions.
The first illusion: they underestimate how much time studying actually requires. Real learning isn’t skimming a chapter. Real learning involves repetition, practice, testing, rewriting, failing, and trying again. It takes hours.
The second illusion: they overestimate how little time they waste. Ask them how much they study and they’ll answer vaguely. Ask them how much they scroll, binge, or game, and suddenly there’s silence.
This is why so many intelligent young people sabotage themselves before they even begin: they believe the myth that they “don’t have time.”
That lie becomes their excuse.
There Is a Way
The exercise below is a simple but ruthless remedy: a time audit.
Write down every hour of your week. Track sleep, meals, travel, classes, work, socializing, and screen time.
Add it up. Confront the number. You may be surprised at what the numbers tell you. And when you see it in black and white, you can no longer deceive yourself.
Once you’ve faced that, you can begin. You can carve out time for the work that matters. That’s where discipline begins and excuses die.
This is solid! Love this!👌🫡