Remind yourself of your “why”

Whether you want to make yourself proud or need to get a certain set of grades for university, coming back to why you are trying so hard and putting in the work will help steer you in the right direction. Personally, I have procrastinated during the time I should have been revising and so going back to the reason why I needed to be revising, helped me not only save time but also prevent procrastination going foward.

Stop dwelling on your failures

Failure is almost always inevitable and so mulling over that one bad test score can not only put you in a bad mental state but also prevent you from making a quicker and better recovery sooner rather than later. There is nothing you can do to change that one grade and so for me personally, knowing where I went wrong really helped to motivate me to do even better and not make the same mistake(s) again. Over time, these failures may be deemed even more significant than your successes (like getting a perfect score) due to the fact that the fundamental things you found you were doing wrong were corrected in order to set up all of the subsequent successes.

Failure is not the opposite of success, it is part of success

Arianna Huffington

Being realistic with yourself

Most of us have been in the position where we sign up to more clubs than we can possibly attend: even I have fallen victim to this yet the “new school year” energy often fuels the habit of doing this! As a result, before the school year even starts, figure out what commitments you already have and how long they take. Then you can base your studying hours and extracurriculars around your pre-existing commitments. This ensures that you are best prepared when signing up for extracurriculars as you know how much time you can spend and on what days you can actually attend them! Doing all of this is especially beneficial when having a digital schedule – this can be via Classify or even Google Calendar. I would like to also add that planning a fortnight or more in advance is the opposite of what you should be doing. Instead, plan for studying and extracurriculars on a weekly basis in order to give some leeway for any contingencies.

Scheduling and standardising each of their worth in your life

As you progress through the academic system, there is more of an emphasis on education, therefore dictating how much time you should be roughly spending on studying. Your wellbeing is of the utmost importance and so although you will want to give your all to a club, knowing when and how long you should be doing both school work and attending clubs can honestly help you do well in school while contributing a fair bit to that certain club. Apart from all of this, prioritisation (ie spending more time on an important task) needs to be embedded in your schedule. This can be derived from how much you value studying compared to your skateboarding class and so this way, you are making the most of your time.

Have your own questions?

If you have a personal dilemma or question about school and teenage life that you want to see answered by fellow students, drop us an email at info@classify.org.uk and we’ll make sure to address it in our next edition with complete anonymity. ✨