If you’re like me, then you’re in multiple sports, in all honors and AP classes, some days not getting home long after school has ended, and still trying to find time for chores, family time, and spending time with friends or your significant other.
The first couple weeks of my high school life were tough because I had all this to balance, and I had no idea how to make it work. Eventually, through a lot of trial and error, I learned how to balance all that efficiently so I wasn’t sacrificing my mental health for numbers in Skyward.
One of the ways I found that works well is prioritizing. I heard from someone that you can’t manage time; it’s impossible. But what you can do is manage your schedule around time. You need to figure out what’s the most important thing you have to do this week and go down the list until you find the least important thing. For example, put studying for that math test above hanging out with your friends that weekend or finishing your English essay instead of spending endless hours on social media.
Another way to balance your time is knowing you won’t get everything done. Especially if you have all honors, dual-credit classes, and AP classes, there’s no way you’re going to have time for everything in one day. So, instead of trying and failing and burning yourself out in the process, just accept that you can’t do it all. A normal school day for me starts at 6:45 A.M. and ends around 5:00 P.M. I’m here longer than some of the teachers are! During that time, I get several pages of homework from each class and then still have practice after that! It is completely exhausting, but it gets ten times better when I let myself relax and accept that I can’t get everything done in one day. As long as I finished the most important things, then it was going to be ok.
The last way I use to manage my time is to make sure that I always have at least one hour of free time. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” as the saying goes. If you spend all your time doing homework and assignments and playing sports without any downtime, you’ll find out quickly that that won’t work. Without any downtime, you’ll get irritable, tired, or even burnt out; there’s no way around it. What you do with that hour of free time is completely up to you. Spend it with your friends, scrolling on TikTok, reading a book, spending it with your family, watching movies- whatever you want.
If you follow these steps, you’re going to be so much better off for it. When I first started this, I didn’t think it would help at all, but now that I’ve been doing it for some time, it’s helped me, and I feel so much better than I did at the start of the year. You don’t have to follow these steps; if you found a routine that works for you, then great, this is just what works for me and so many other people.
