An Exonian Dilemma: Time Management
The bustle of busy students reverberates throughout my dorm at night. On a typical Thursday evening, one can hear footsteps well past 1:00 a.m. We blame our demanding schedules, heavy workload and high-expectations from teachers for such late nights. Indeed, many students look haggard on Friday mornings having pulled all-nighters; others suffer from too many consecutive nights of sub six-hour sleep.
Students complain that sleep deprivation is due to the heavy workload, but that workload won’t go away. In fact, as we get older, our responsibilities only increase. It’s easy to blame sleep deprivation on a heavy workload, but if we avoid procrastination, the hardest habit of all to break, students can live out the infamous “school triangle”—good grades, quality sleep and a meaningful social life. While the struggle to lead a well-balanced life at Exeter challenges all of us, there are smarter ways to manage our time.
Even though the new schedule is hotly debated among students and faculty, the recent changes do leave enough free time during the day to complete some homework and mitigate the amount of work at night. Yes, claiming that students will have the stamina in between classes to do homework is optimistic. But the power of habit can change our laziness. Just spending one free period a day on homework so that we can have one less class to worry about in the evening will go a long way. Many see the day broken into thirds: the school day, extracurriculars in the early afternoon, and homework at night. One way to alleviate the onus of homework at night is to incorporate one or two assignments into the school day, taking advantage of breaks that can be as long as seventy minutes. Also, where you spend time on homework is critical. Instead of trying to do math problems in the dorm during the day, try the library where there are fewer distractions. Spending time at the library while we are still in ‘school mode’ will give us more time for social life and sleep.
Despite the momentary pleasure of media, powering down our devices while we study will give back our much needed seven to nine hours of sleep. Any high school student would be hard-pressed to say that social media has not proved a distraction to his or her work schedule. Indeed, The Washington Post reports that teenagers spend roughly nine hours per day using media including social apps, TV and music. Most of us will do one math problem and then check our phones, come back, do another problem, and check our phones again, which makes it feel like we have spent an hour on homework when it was really only a thirty-minute assignment.
By turning off the phone, we won’t waste extra time that still feels like studying. It’s a hard habit to break, but if we turn off social media while trying to study, we can be more efficient, more focused and more thoroughly prepared for class. And perhaps our grades will likely improve as well!
That’s not to say we shouldn’t still spend time with friends, communicate digitally with one another and keep up with our friends and families on Facebook. Maybe social media can be a reward for completing our work rather than as a distraction for it. We can have both a meaningful social life and achieve academically by not allowing the two to overlap one another. Moreover, we will also obtain crucial sleep time, fulfilling the “school triangle.”