Effective Time Management for High School Students

In today's fast paced world, time management for high school students is essential. There never seems to be enough hours in a day. How do you find time to hang out with friends when you have to go to school for 6 and a half hours, attend soccer practice, do loads of homework, and work at your job all in one day? There never seems to be enough time!

Schedule how you will spend your day. Make sure you write it down somewhere. No, you don’t have to carry around a daily planner everywhere you go. PDA’s and cell phones normally have some type of scheduling software. Though it helps to have a portable planner, writing your “to do” list in something stationary will be fine. You can make your schedule on your wall calendar or a calendar program like Microsoft Outlook.

Estimate how long it will take to do each task starting with the longest commitments. Is soccer practice going to take an hour-and-a-half? Schedule that in. Do you have a ton of homework to do tonight? Estimate the amount of time and schedule a part of your day to do it. Starting with the most important and time consuming commitments helps you determine how much time you can spend on less important activities like playing video games. Needs first, then wants.

Know when you work your best. Maybe you don’t write very well in the morning, but excel at it in the afternoon and evening. If that’s the case, then doing your homework in the afternoon will be the best time to schedule a homework/study session. Instead, do something not quite as important in the morning, like your workout.

Combine tasks. Do you spend 30 minutes on the bus in the morning? Close the cell phone and get some reading or homework done! Since this commute has to be done daily, why not make some time in the afternoon when you have a choice of what you can do.

Remember the importance of sleep. Sleep can seem like the ultimate waste of time. You’re lying in bed doing nothing. But if your body is tired, it won’t function very well. You won’t remember much from your study session if you had to drink a couple energy drinks to keep your eyes open. A rested body is more productive.

Don’t be afraid to say “no”. We all like to please others, but your boss won’t fire you if don’t come into work to cover someone’s shift. If you’ve got a load of homework to do or you promised to help your mother at a fundraiser, those activities take precedence. This doesn’t mean you have to be inflexible, but your important tasks need to come first.

You can’t do it all. Sure, doing Cheerleading in the morning, taking all honors classes, playing basketball after school, and working 30 hours a week might seem fun. Unfortunately, you aren’t going to excel at a single one. It’s better to do a few things and focus on those than to do it all and struggle to get by.

Estimate the amount of free time you’ll have each day. Between eight hours of sleep, seven hours of school, three hours of extracurricular activities and/or homework, and anything else you’ve got going on, you may not have much spare time. If that’s the case, estimate the amount of time you may have. Then think about what you want to do and how much time you have to do it. Do you want to blow it by watching TV, or would you rather do something that feels more accomplishing, like writing a book? Whatever you choose to do, remember, down time is important.

Effective time management for high school students is essential to accomplishing all you want to do. If you have a difficult time doing all you want/need to do, is it because you truly don’t have enough time? Or is it because you don’t manage your time very well?