As you enter high school, your workload is often the heaviest it’s ever been. You might be tackling APs, challenging math classes, or reading-heavy courses – all while trying to balance extracurriculars, apply to college, and manage familial or social obligations. Without a clear academic plan that’s organized with your adjusted priorities in mind, it’s easy to let things pile up and lead to last-minute cramming.
Students come to us all the time feeling overwhelmed, overworked, or stressed to the max! Often because they haven’t been taught to manage their time in a way that works for them and their schedule. Learning how to plan and prioritize your workload is one of the most valuable skills you can develop as a high school student because it can follow you to college and beyond. To learn more, check out this blog, where our team shares some tips and tricks for how to practice good planning and prioritization skills.
Have a Clear Understanding of Your Commitments
Before you can plan an effective schedule, you’ll need an accurate picture of everything on your plate. We find that it’s helpful to write out all of the responsibilities you have in your life on paper so you can gain a visual sense of what you need to plan for in any given stretch of time.
The scale of this part is up to you! It helps many students to take their planning month by month so they can most accurately gauge ongoing projects, but some students prefer planning out every detail of their semester all at once. Choose whatever works for you!
First, let’s start with schoolwork: Take some time to list any homework, projects, exams, or presentations you have coming up. Try to be as inclusive of your school responsibilities as possible! Meaning, include any weekly reading you need to complete, the different phases of a class project, or any extra responsibilities you may have.
Next, you should list any extracurricular activities, sports, clubs, volunteer opportunities, music practice, regularly scheduled events, etc. that occupy your time. Whether this includes family obligations, daily downtime you need to keep your sanity, hobbies you enjoy, or if you have a part-time job– write it down. The point should be to record anything that might keep your attention away from school and demand its own time.
Time Judgements
To avoid over-scheduling yourself, it’s also helpful to think how long you’ll realistically spend (in hours) on the items in this list. Maybe you know that it takes you 6 hours to finish annotating your course readings each week, an hour each night to finish your math homework, or that you want to devote 30 minutes each day to studying for Spanish; in any case, you only have so many hours in a week.
Putting time stamps on your activities helps you to visualize where your time is going and helps you budget what you can reasonably get done in a day. To determine how many hours you have available in a week to devote to your studies, take the total number of hours in a week (168) and first subtract 56 hours– as you can’t do anything without a full 8 hours night sleep– then perhaps subtract an additional daily hour for meals; time allotted for grooming, car travel, exercise, etc.
You need to paint as realistic a picture as possible of your daily life to realistically understand how your studies can be incorporated as part of your life. Some students try to aim too high on what they can achieve in a day or week and end up getting discouraged. Understanding how much you can reasonably achieve in a period of time is one of the key differences between a good plan and well wishes. Being realistic at every step of the process helps you to avoid missteps and overworking yourself.
To determine what you should prioritize and when, you should also check your syllabi for important deadlines. Tests, projects, and assignments with the closest deadlines should live at the top of your to-do list. This keeps them on your radar and gives you time to make any necessary preparations. However, it’s also important to make sure you’re considering long-term assignments in the way you manage your time week by week.
Make sure that you’re avoiding overcommiting
Remember, too, that you should be building in some time for flexibility. There will always be spontaneous dinners with your friends, unexpected tasks that take longer than expected, and even the occasional emergency or family trip that gets in the way of study time. Being kind to yourself and making time for the event that “life happens” will leave you feeling at ease with the fact that you planned for yourself to have some buffer time if you encountered adjustments, delays, or setbacks.
Also, while it can be tempting to say yes to every opportunity that comes your way– especially when you’re trying to build your resume, have new experiences with friends, or succeed in school, overloading yourself can lead to burnout and makes it so you’re not able to be present in any of your activities because you’re just too busy. Remember, quality over quantity, and it’s important to devote yourself to what matters rather than just trying to collect all the activities you can.
Conclusion
As always, Marks Education is here to help you every step of the way! Our professional team of full-time private tutors and counselors are here to help you make a splash in every step of the application process. We’ve helped dozens of students plan their school year and find success in their academic coursework. Contact us now for a FREE consultation!