Sociological aspect of time management in the structure of student daily life

The article presents the results of a sociological study on time management practices in the daily lives of students. Time management is viewed not only as a set of individual planning and self-organization skills but also as a practice of organizing everyday life, dependent on the structure of the student’s academic, work, and household activities. The theoretical and methodological foundation of the study consists of a system-structural approach to analyzing time budget and phenomenological sociology by A. Schutz, which allows for an understanding of the difference between objective time expenditures and their subjective perception. An empirical method used was a questionnaire survey of 144 first-year bachelor's degree students in full-time education from the Faculty of Education, Psychology, and Social Sciences at Penza State University. The study examined the structure of the time budget, the duration of academic and work activities, sleep and leisure, digital activity, planning practices, and planning horizons, as well as the subjective assessment of the sufficiency of free time. Data processing involved percentage distribution of responses and comparison of indicators among groups of students differing in the nature of digital activity, planning mode, academic performance, and other parameters of time organization. Special attention was given to the relationship between digital activity and the subjective assessment of free time, as well as the comparison of planning practices with the frequency of last-minute preparation for classes. The scientific novelty of the study lies in considering time management as a socially conditioned practice shaped by the interaction of individual ways of organizing time and the conditions of student everyday life. It was shown that the feeling of time scarcity is related not only to the volume of mandatory activities but also to the nature of using the flexible part of the time budget. This is most evident at high levels of digital activity: students who spend a long time watching short videos frequently report a lack of free time. Another identified aspect is related to planning: deviations from the established plan are associated with more frequent last-minute preparation for classes. The practical significance of the study relates to the potential use of the findings in the mentorship work with first-year students. The identified characteristics of time organization can be considered when planning mentoring hours and developing activities aimed at fostering planning skills, distributing academic load, monitoring digital activity, and preventing systematic last-minute preparation.