Academy students are improving their time management

It is crucial for Academy girls to have efficient time management. As Jasia Solak (’25) put it, finishing up her assignments only allows her to get around “4-6 hours” of sleep by just completing her assignments and attending her many swim practices. Many Academy students have been facing situations where homework, sport practices take up a majority of their schedules, despite school having just started.

Solak said, “I normally get 4-6 hours of sleep because of my school work and swimming as it takes a bunch of my time. When managing my time, I just kind of wing it; I use a planner but I normally don’t use a to do list.”

Many students returning to school are facing new assignments with added stress to their plate. Beginning the school year is not as easy as it may seem. In fact, getting adjusted to the amount of formatives and summatives given throughout the week can just be overwhelming at times.

Grades, homework, deadlines, and extracurricular activities can amount into mounds of stress with a scarce amount of time to be achieved. In addition to this, preparation for the SAT and driver’s license exams can be added into the piles of stress.

Bella Guzman (‘25) said, “I drink coffee in the morning, and then I make a list of what I have to make for the next day. Just like on Sunday, I made a list of work for 20th Century, and Sculpture I based it on what I have due the next day. I like to start my work from the hardest, depending if I’m struggling in the class or if I have a lot of work, to the easiest.”

Time management is key to success in academics, as well as to out-of-school lives. Much of the stress and fears that students have can catch up with them. Without an upholding structure installed in their lives, such as adequate time management, students could fall apart in an instant.

In the article Five Time Management Tips For Students In High School, it states “Finding a healthy balance is often the key to success.”

Forming an upstanding time management is integral to the way people live and act, so here are some tips for having a key time management:

1. Start off your day with a to-do list. Starting your day off with a list on what you plan to achieve is essential in managing your time; it is the base unit in developing time management skills. 
2. Create a schedule. Though you may know what you plan to complete, you need to set a time in which you want to start and end an item on your list. Though each of these tips are equally important, these two can be intertwined with our own health.

Mr. Robert Quinn, the Director for the Academy High School Math Department, was asked on how he manages his time, with being a math teacher for the Academy. He said, “Wake up early and go to bed early. Just waking up early and having my stuff organized in the morning just helps take the stress out of my day.”

      3. You need to know your own limits. Don’t expect yourself to achieve everything in a small allotted amount of time, you need to remember that our bodies can only handle so much pressure and work.

       4. Try not to procrastinate. Though it may seem hard, procrastinating can really harm not only our health but even our academics; try to finish your to-do list for each day without having to crunch other items on your list for the end (it just makes your life harder).

Completing tasks is also a function of your mental state, not just time and resources.

It's easy to miss this. Being calculated and strategic about doing "nothing" helps you get things done.

You're not helping anyone by getting burned out.

— Time Management Hacks (@time_mgmt_tips) February 21, 2022

Time management, when used efficiently, can help students achieve greater goals throughout the years of high school (as well as throughout their entire student career), and their private lives.