One of the biggest challenges students face when they go to high school is how to manage their time. Especially for students who have to balance sports everyday along with schoolwork (like me), time management becomes crucial to their success. Here are my tips that work for me.
Do not procrastinate! This may seem obvious, but everyone has probably done this before. Going into high school, it is more important than ever before to not procrastinate.
Have internal motivation to get your work done. Not many people have told me this before, but I find this extremely helpful. Don't do your homework just because your parents have told you to do it. Do your homework because you want to succeed in school and get into a good college to pursue your dreams. Write down on a post-it what your dreams are and reference it when you lose motivation.
Use a planner: Use a planner as if its a to-do list. Write down all of your homework with check boxes next to it. By doing this, you won't forget to do your work and you can see visually what you need to prioritize. Also, you can congratulate yourself once you finish and check off each box, which is the best part!
Set a certain amount of time for each task: This is so helpful for people who spend too much time on little tasks. Put an "end" time as to when you would like to finish each task. Even if you don't finish the task in time, it's a good checkpoint for yourself to see how much time you should be spending on each assignment.
Prioritize your assignments: Personally, I like to get my easy assignments out of the way fast and do my harder assignments at the end. This makes me have more focus towards the end rather than worrying about little homework assignments.
Turn off the tech: I'm sure every adolescent gets distracted by technology, especially his/her phone. I turn on the "do not disturb" setting on my phone while I am doing homework to avoid distractions. Some people I know put their phones in a separate room while they are studying. I can't even stress how important this tip is.
Don't try to make everything perfect: Getting hung up on the little things will take away too much time. Focus on the important things. You do not have to strive for perfect handwriting or perfect answers on every question.
Take breaks: Trying to study for hours at a time gets to be hard and you do not want to burn out. Try to take breaks every 1.5 hours or so to eat, relax, and gain back motivation to work again.
Set a time to sleep every night: Sleep starts to become "overrated" in high school. However, sleep is actually even more important in high school. I set a time to sleep every night so I have motivation to finish all of my work before that time. This helps me work faster. Studying until 3 AM rather than sleeping at 11 PM may hurt you more than help you.
Don't waste your time: Many of my friends ask me for homework help everyday and I always love to help them. The problem with this is that sometimes I was sacrificing my sleep to help them. Try to help your friends once you are done with all of your work or tell them you can help them during the school day. Don't spend hours watching TikTok or Netflix because once you start to do it everyday, it will become a habit.
Create a schedule of your week: Write down what times of each day that you are busy--including showering, eating meals, doing homework, or attending your sports. Then, asses your schedule and figure out what times of each week you are going to use for sole relaxation to do whatever you want. This is so important so that you can have a break mentally.
