I love to get lost in the magic of teenage rom-coms, such as High School Musical, Mean Girls, Clueless, and Euphoria- just to name a few. Thinking back to my childhood, my memories are flooded with watching Disney Originals and imagining what my biggest coming-of-age moments would be like, including going to football games, learning how to drive, and dancing at prom. But somehow, what you don’t see until you experience it is the amount of homework you are inundated with in high school. High school is more than taking pretty polaroids with your friends. Many students are drowning in the stress of getting good grades, balancing extracurriculars or part-time jobs, and overall doing anything to perfect their college application. While this may seem daunting, it is not impossible; it is not necessary to give up the balance while maintaining good grades and participating in other things that pique your interest. This is a guide on having good time management in high school.
Firstly, you want to set your goals for each frame of time of what you want to accomplish in high school. They can be broad, and you can narrow it down into what you want to accomplish each year, and then each month. These should be realistic, and something you know challenges your limits and pushes you to try something new while also still being something you can learn in a reasonable frame of time. You also don’t want to spread yourself too thin, picking 1-3 extracurriculars/main projects to focus all of your energy on aside from your homework is a reasonable amount. For example, let's say you want to dedicate your high school career to preparing for a stem major in college. This would be your long-term goal. Your year-long goals could be to get good grades in your stem classes, finish 1 science project for a science fair, and participate in 1 science club. Dedicating an hour/two-hour slot every day to work on one of these goals will help you to accomplish them. However, doing this on top of a strenuous sport or other clubs unrelated to your interests will overwork you.
You also want to make sure you are doing work whenever you feel most productive. You don’t want to work during parts of the day when you are drowsy and lethargic, and waste parts of your day when you are energetic and procrastinating. Secondly, if you can ask teachers for accommodations or help on homework that will help you to understand it/finish it faster or reduce the amount of homework you have, it will be less of a burden on you. Another part is minimizing the work you have to do at home by finishing your homework in any free time they give you in school. I know this may not be a lot, but crunching in any homework you can do in small pockets of free time you may have in school will help you to have time to rest when you get home. Additionally, it is easy to get distracted when you are in your room and a teacher is not hovering over you to get your work done. Social media can be a devil when it comes to distraction, so trying to eliminate it/setting a frame of time in which you do not use it is beneficial.
If you are struggling to focus due to any issues that cannot be controlled, whether it is external factors such as bullying or internal factors such as mental health, it is okay to ask for help and not push yourself beyond what you can handle. You are not behind your peers if you cannot focus because of these factors, but your mental health comes first.
Overall, high school students tend to overwork themselves and lose sight that they are doing enough, despite what any Ivy League Admission Consultant Ad may tell you. If you are doing what makes you feel fulfilled and happy, you are doing enough. Working solely to get into a school is important and may provide you with good opportunities, however, when you enter adulthood later in your career- the test scores you got when you were a teenager will not seem as important then. You won’t remember your life by the remarks the teacher put on your math quiz or the acceptance letter you get from a university, although it may seem like a big deal at the moment. You will remember it by the memories you made in the time you allowed yourself to enjoy, rewarding yourself for the hard work you did.
Works Cited
Mizrahi, Janet. “9 Quick Tips for Students Struggling with Time Management | Cengage.” Today's Learner, https://todayslearner.cengage.com/build-your-students-time-management-skills/. Accessed 11 September 2022.
Nimesheim, Jackson. “Time Management Tips for College-Bound High School Students.” USNews.com, 14 July 2022, https://www.usnews.com/education/articles/time-management-tips-for-college-bound-high-school-students. Accessed 11 September 2022.
Picard, JP. “Feel like you're not doing enough? Read This.” In Bloom Project, 14 December 2020, http://inbloomproject.com/blog-2/feel-like-youre-not-doing-enough-read-this. Accessed 11 September 2022.
Comments