Time is a valuable, and finite, resource. This is true for everyone, but high school students feel many more demands on their hours than most. Some seize and spend their time wisely, others fritter it away piecemeal, but all are allocated the same number of hours and seconds; no more, no less.
In this article, we’ll explore the various demands upon the time of high school students, and how they can be sure they’re spending their time wisely. We’ll look at ways you can manage your time to make sure that you get everything done, and still have time enough to live and breathe and experience the exuberance of a halcyon youth. Time management is a skill like any other, and as we impart it to our students, so too do we hope to teach you. Let’s begin!
Dividing the Hours
The biggest demand on a student’s time during their waking hours is school. While the length of a school day varies around the country, it is the largest single block of time usage for most students. This is both necessary and immutable, so all other activities must be planned around school.
On top of a student’s time physically at school, they must devote time to schoolwork outside of it. While there are occasional petitions to ban homework, it remains an integral part of the modern educational system, and all students must set aside requisite time to complete it.
Next come extracurriculars, a student’s clubs, sports teams, passion projects, volunteering hours, part-time jobs, and other ways they involve themselves outside of (or within) school. The number of these you are involved in is up to you, and we’ll explore later how you can get the best results.
Finally, there is time to relax. To eat, to laze, to watch TV or hang out with friends. To simply exist while the world moves around you. This is often the smallest category of waking hours, but is no less important for that fact.
Budgeting Your Time
Now that we’ve seen all the places your time is spent as a high school student, we’re going to discuss how you should divide your hours among them. Here are our steps to drafting a schedule:
- First, pencil in a sleep schedule. Too many students geth far too little sleep. Do not sacrifice your sleep for other activities, it isn’t worth it.
- Second, mark out the time you need to spend at school, including transit. These first two set, your remaining time can then be apportioned out.
- Determine how much time completing your homework will take. We know this can be difficult for some students, and give advice on this specifically in the next section.
- Pencil in your extracurriculars. These usually have set schedules for when and where they occur, and so you can block them out on your schedule.
- Add time to complete your homework around your extracurriculars. You know how many hours you will need to complete it, so you can use this to fill in gaps, between school and extracurriculars, or before you sleep.
- Add designated time to relax. While it is not your top priority, it is still necessary to have some time doing what you enjoy, or simply recharging, between your other activities.
This is a very general guide, which we regret, but it is by necessity; each student has different obligations, and advice to specific situations is difficult to manage in an article of this sort. Still, in the next sections, we will attempt to give specific time management tips for dealing with different parts of scheduling your activities.
Dealing with Homework
Homework is usually our student’s biggest concern when it comes to time management, and for good reason. The amount of homework high school classes assign varies, but as you progress into more advanced classes, it can rise precipitously.
We recommend the following when it comes to getting homework done in a timely manner:
- Organization. You should keep track of every assignment you have assigned, and when it is due. The manner of this tracking is up to you, but this will allow you to prioritize your work, and make sure nothing important is forgotten.
- Efficiency. Try to work as efficiently as possible, to maximize your returns. This means working without distractions from your phone, with limited breaks, and with clear goals in mind.
- Prioritization. Rank the relative size, difficulty, and timeline of various assignments. This can be done informally, but weighing how much effort each will require will allow you to know when you should begin working on a big project, or reviewing for a test.
Working on homework is a skill like any other, and if you master it in high school, you will have a much easier time in college. This is the portion of your schedule you can be most flexible with, and making the best use of time here is the best way to free up time for other extracurriculars.
Prioritizing Extracurriculars
There is only so much time you can invest into extracurriculars, so you should choose how to spend your time wisely. We’ve discussed what colleges look for in extracurriculars, and their importance in college admissions, but now we’re going to take a closer look at how this can impact your time management in high school.
First, know that you do not need to completely fill every hour with extracurriculars to get into college. This is one of the most common mistakes we see students making. A passionate devotion to a few extracurriculars is far more impressive than a surface level involvement with many.
What does this look like?Let’s compare the extracurriculars of two students, A and B. What does each list tell you about them?
Student A:
- Dances 20 hours a week.
- Teaches two dance classes a week.
- Participates in choreography showcases.
- Volunteers at a food bank once per week.
Student B:
- Is a member of their school’s robotics club.
- Is on the debate team.
- Is on the varsity baseball team.
- Plays trombone in the school orchestra.
- Volunteers at a nursing home once per week.
- Is a member of the National Honors Society.
- Works as a lifeguard part-time.
How would you describe each student? What are their interests? Which is easier to sum up?
Both students are clearly passionate people, and devote a lot of time to their extracurriculars. Despite this, student A will stand out more in admissions, and also likely has more free time than student B. The depths of their involvement is what admissions officers want to see, since this is seen as an indicator of the student’s willingness to devote themselves to something.
You do not need to devote yourself solely to one activity; take, for instance, student C:
- Is a member of the robotics club.
- Volunteers to teach kids to code.
- Programmed and launched an app with friends.
- Interned at a local engineering firm.
- Took part in a robotics summer program.
This student has clear interests and passions, and their activities present a unified whole. When deciding where to spend your limited time on extracurriculars, you want activities you enjoy, and that allow you to explore your passions. There are a limited number of hours in a day, don’t spend them participating in activities just because you think they’ll look good for college, or out of a need to fill your time. Find what you love to do, and then pursue it with abandon.
Time for Relaxation
Everyone needs some time to unwind. Some students are lucky, and can get some of this through extracurriculars, but even these students need to take some time to breathe, and relax, and just enjoy the fruits of youth for a spell. We recommend structuring time for this into your schedule.
The benefit of having built-in time for relaxation is that it lessens the desire to goof off when you are working, and also serves to prevent burnout. Nobody can go full speed on work all the time; this will only cause anguish. Time to unwind means that the time you do spend working is more productive, and allows you to be more focused.
What you do to unwind is up to you, but we recommend a range of activities. We also recommend that at least a few of your extracurriculars allow you to indulge. Here are some common ways to unwind, and how you can meet them through activities:
- Hanging out with friends. Any club, sport, or activity that lets you spend time with friends lets you do this.
- Exercise. Sports, dance; most any physical activity can make for a great extracurricular.
- Expressing yourself. Be it through art, music, writing, or any other creative forms, many students find an outlet for their creativity in their extracurriculars.
Of course, even if you can unwind somewhat through extracurriculars, you should take time for yourself outside them. We recommend doubling in this way for the sake of efficiency, and to allow you the greatest flexibility when scheduling.
Final Thoughts
The ticking of the clock counts us through the days of our lives, and binds us all; so we must make the best use of the ones we’re given. We know that high school students often struggle with this, but by building great time management habits now can go on to have very fulfilling experiences in college and beyond.
If you are looking for more personalized guidance on time management, or want to hear how we can help you build good academic habits more broadly, schedule a free consultation with us. Our academic coaching and candidacy building services help students become the best versions of themselves, and that, above all is what colleges want to see.
