Prioritize Your Life
Personally, I get distracted very easily. I will sit down to do homework and three hours later, find that I have updated myself on everyone life (through social media) and read the same paragraph about 12 times. It is easy to prioritize things that you want to do, and enjoy doing. It is also easy to put school on the backburner, and worry about it later.
An easy way to truly prioritize your life is to ask yourself a few questions.
“How important is this to me?” By important, I don’t mean how much you want to do it. What I mean is, how beneficial will it be to spend your time this way? I’ve recently had to quit an extracurricular activity, because I decided my grades were more important to me than the activity. Even though it was extremely hard for me, I made the choice in order to prioritize school over basketball.
Know the value of the trade-off. Trade-off refers to the alternative option. Say you had to choose between going to a John Mayer concert or studying for an important calculus test on Monday. If this is the only John Mayer concert you will ever be able to go to and if you absolutely worship the ground he walks on then you might think this is the better option. But remember, the trade-off of going to the concert will be a not-so-stellar calculus grade. So decide for yourself if the trade-off is worth it, and if it is then you know where your priorities lay.
When is it due?? Students are more likely to do things they like. So if you really enjoy biology and think history is just a means of helping you fall asleep then you might decide to work on the biology project due in two weeks instead of studying for that history test coming up on Friday. It is important to prioritize based on deadlines. This might seem really obvious but a lot of times we tend to underestimate how long it will take us to complete a task. An easy way to avoid this is to do what is due first and worry about farther deadlines down the road later.
Don’t overload yourself. Try not to put too much on your plate all at once. Especially with high school seniors, who have college applications coming up, make sure to set aside time for the applications. Even though the deadline is further down the road, don’t act like it isn’t there. Continue doing the things that you enjoy and have responsibilities for but make sure you remember all your commitments and feel comfortable taking on a new task.
It is surprising how much easier life can get if you prioritize your commitments and establish what is important. You not only find out a lot about your own interests, but also save yourself time and work efficiently!
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