By: Mary Koch & Ella Sutherland

School can be stressful, and it’s even worse when you’re falling behind in your work.

Here are some tips to stay organized this year.

1. Get a planner:
A great way to stay organized is by getting a planner. You can write down your assignments, plan your day, and add notes.

They make your life so much calmer because you won’t forget to do things, and you can make sure you’ll have the time you need throughout the day.

2. Prioritize:
It’s important to have fun, but school’s important too. Try to plan your day so you have time to get your work done first before moving on to the things you want to do.

If you’re able to finish your work, or at least get a good start, you’ll be able to have fun and not worry about when you’ll get things done. Your day can be stress free if you can make the decision to do the boring parts first.

3. Plan Ahead:
Going along with prioritizing and getting a planner, you should always plan when you want to get things done. If you don’t wait until the last minute you won’t be rushed, so you can do your best work.

Instead of planning on finishing assignments right before the due date, you could make your own due date, so you can make sure everything is turned in on time.

Making sure to study for tests early is a good way to get better grades. Don’t try to learn everything the night before when all you’ll really do is stress yourself out. Instead you could find time to study days before, so you really understand the topic.

4. Stay Focused:
Not everybody can focus in the same environment. Some people need complete silence, and some people do best when they’re listening to music.

Find out what works best for you, and try to use those things to your advantage. If you know you can get a better grade on a test while you have music playing, you can ask a teacher, so you can do what’s best for you.

If you’re not able to focus when you have people talking around you, move somewhere you won’t be as easily distracted.

5. Make Your Work Fun:
Not all school work has to be boring. You can make it fun by doing things like doing homework or studying with your friends. You can talk and help each other while still doing your work.

Another way to make homework fun is by eating a piece of candy for every assignment you finish. You can also decorate your notes and use fun colors.

6. Ask Questions:
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. If you don’t understand something, your teacher will be happy to help out. You can ask in, before, or after class, or you could email your teacher privately and set up a time to meet.

Classes are so much easier when you actually understand the material, so speak up because teachers are there to help.

7. Organize:
If you’re able to keep your work and life organized, you’ll have a better chance of staying on top of your work. Whether you rely on a planner, or you just write things down anywhere, there are always ways to stay more organized.

Sticking to schedules or routines helps with knowing what you need to do and when. Having a designated spot to write down any homework or upcoming tests makes it easier to plan ahead and do things on time.

Those were just a few ways to keep your schoolwork stress free, and there are many other ways. Not everything works for everyone, but hopefully these will help keep this year organized.

For more information, please visit:

• https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/focused.html?scrlybrkr=c0659981

By: McKenna Nutter

Research that was conducted at Stanford University, in 2013, found that high school students, who may be considered a part of ‘high achieving communities’, who spend more time on their homework, struggle with balancing their education with their social life and physical health. This lack of balance has caused many of these students stress. 

This study came to find that more than two hours of homework per night is not only overbearing, but it also is counterproductive. The students who participated in this study reported to be spending over three hours on homework, on average. 

When it came to stress, over 70% of the studied students reported they were often, or even always, stressed over schoolwork, and more than 99% claimed that homework was a stressor. More than 40% of students claimed they experienced three or more physical symptoms when asked if they ever experienced any headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss, and stomach problems, and 80% said they experienced at least one. 

Many students in this study, and even personally, felt forced and/or obligated, to choose homework and grades over the rest of their life. This could mean that any free time at home, time with my family, any social outings, and extracurricular activities were neglected because of homework. 

Some tips that can help with the stress of too much homework are:

• Stick to a schedule: As a student, this has helped me a lot, with more than my homework. Just forcing myself to wake up at the same time everyday, get dress and do something like make my bed or pick up my room before school has helped me create good habits that I wouldn’t otherwise have.

• Stay organized and check your agenda constantly: This is another important aspect to keeping stress down. A tool I use personally is a homework app. I enter my homework and the due dates into an app and check it off as complete when it is submitted. It also helps me when an adult also has access to my homework tracker to help me stay on task.

• Communication: Communication with your teacher is ideal, it helps your teacher get to know you and it makes it easy to talk to them when you have questions. And as mentioned before, talking with an adult in your house is very helpful. Sit down for five minutes every night, or every couple nights, and discuss how homework is progressing and your upcoming assignments. I was very hesitant when I first started doing this, but it has given me a lot of motivation to get things done. 

• Get a good night’s sleep. This one seems very obvious but it’s true. I’m sure everyone knows the importance of sleep, but as a high schooler myself, I cannot tell anyone how much easier school got when I started going to sleep at a decent time. If you were to do this, even on most nights, the difference is noticeable. 

There are many resources students can use to keep in contact with their teachers and many apps and websites to keep track of your schoolwork. The app I use personally is called ‘My Homework Student Planner’, and paper planners are another amazing way to stay up to date. I spend, at most, five minutes at the start of each day looking through Schoology for new assignments.