As I am reaching the end of my junior year, I took a quick recap of what I accomplished. I involved myself in AP classes, seven extracurriculars, one sport, and a part time job. My life basically revolved around school and my grades. However, I still had a pretty good social life. As high school goes on, I learn how to balance everything out pretty well. And I do get a lot of questions asking, "How do you do it?" Well, here is what I do. All it is is three simple tips. Just follow this and you will remain sane for the rest of the school year!
1. Keep a planner!
Let.me.tell.YOU. A planner is key when it comes to organizing all the events in your life. Without my planner or reminders on my phone, I would forget everything. I make sure to write everything down as soon as I get information on it. I constantly keep up with my due dates and events that might be coming up that week. What I usually do is every night, I will sit down with my planner for a couple of minutes and cross things out, write things down, or remind myself of things I may have forgot about. Also, planners at Target are super cute so it is totally worth the purchase.
2. One thing at a time.
I am not gonna lie. I get really stressed out when I know I have a busy week ahead of me. Whether it be quarterly week or the night of a school concert. However, do everything one at a time. If you have a project due in 5 minutes and a paper due in one week, do the project. Do not freak about the paper that you have plenty of time to work on after the project. If you think about that paper, you can not concentrate on what is in front of you. So just take a deep breath, and be present with what you are doing at that moment.
3. Take breaks.
Ever since I got back from a school trip, I have been slammed with work. I did everything I had to do on time and handed it in. However, I do have another assignment that is due in a week. If I know I am going to get it done, I will give myself the one or two days I need to decompress. I will not over work myself to the point where I crash and have NO desire to do any work at all. Then, it will just be harder in the end to get it done. So, take the couple days you need to relax and let your mind breath.
