After two months of sleeping until noon and snacking at odd times of the day, the time to get back into the school routine is here. For many, this means balancing several activities at once, including studying for AP classes, playing a sport, working a job and leading a club.
How do students find time for everything? Many choose to wake up early, sleep late and wake up the next day only to feel more tired.
Alternatively, another way to manage schoolwork and extracurriculars is to implement a schedule to fit in all your activities, while also allotting time to unwind. There is no fixed way to create a schedule, and everyone’s time management looks different depending on their organization habits. Here are some ways to discover what works best for you.
Find your power time
To start, think about the time of day you feel the most energized. Once you are aware of that, you can center your most important or challenging work around that time so that you can complete it with your best effort. This can help reduce stress because you are tackling challenging tasks at the time when you thrive the most.
I feel the most productive during the late morning, so I might study for a test or finish writing an essay during that time. Then later in the day, I complete my other tasks not requiring as much concentration and effort, especially because I have less energy.
While this method works well on weekends, it can be difficult to execute on school days, especially if you work best in the morning or afternoon. On these days, you can do something after school that helps you feel more energized, thus allowing you to come back to your work feeling refreshed and ready to get started. This could be taking a nap, watching your favorite show, refueling with a snack or going on a walk.
Set time blocks
A schedule does not always have to be very detailed with hourly planning. If you are not a detail-oriented person, like myself, when it comes to managing time, you can gain a broad idea of what you want your day to look like through time-blocking. Setting aside chunks of time with a generic goal of what you plan to accomplish tends to be helpful to visualize your day.
Say I set aside two hours after school to study for an upcoming math test from 4:30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. This time slot may seem like it lacks detail, but once I sit down to study at 4.30 p.m., I can choose how I want to spend my time. For example, I can decide to watch review videos for 30 minutes, followed by an hour of doing practice problems and then spend the last 30 minutes reviewing my mistakes and missed problems. This limits the stress that would come if tasks take longer than expected.
Start with timed items
Another way of effectively managing your time is by beginning with the task taking a fixed amount of time. If you know that you need to spend three hours preparing for the SAT, get that out of the way before starting on anything else. Then, you can move on to other assignments that have varying time periods, such as writing an essay or researching a topic. This way, you can complete these assignments at your own pace and to the best of your ability, instead of rushing through them because you have to do a timed task afterwards.
Keep time for yourself
Finally, ensure that you carve out time to relax as well. Our lives can get extremely busy, so we all need time to take a breath and refresh before we start running again. If you often find yourself checking social media instead of working, you can allot it its own time slot. This way, you will not feel guilty while on your phone, knowing that you have specifically set aside this time for that task.
Following a schedule takes discipline, and figuring out what works best for you can take time. But if you stick with it over time, you can maximize your productivity each day and feel rewarded in the end.
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