About an hour after arriving home, I finally sit down at the table to start doing homework. I reach into my backpack and pull out all the papers I just crammed in. Geometry, Biology and Spanish, all laid out in front of me. 

My stomach dropped as I realized that I haven’t even started on a project for Spanish. I totally forget about my homework because I’m too busy worrying about football while in season.

Recently, I had two friends tell me that they stayed up until 4 A.M. doing homework for the same class. 

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, teens should sleep eight to 10 hours a night. But studies have shown that seven out of 10 high school students are falling short of this recommendation on school nights.

When students don’t get enough sleep the previous day, it affects their learning the next day. Sleep is a necessity, and it’s underrated when it comes to how serious it is. 

To me, it looks like a pattern. The pattern is this, a student stays up doing homework every night, and during the next day, they don’t do as well in school because they’re exhausted. Students are doing the homework to get a good grade when in reality it’s just setting them up for failure the next day. Students need sleep to be able to function.

“Insufficient sleep among adolescents may not only contribute to lower grades and a lack of motivation but may also increase the odds of serious levels of emotional and behavioral disturbances, including ADHD,” reported by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. 

Now I can also see the teacher side of all of this. We chose the classes, didn’t we? We knew what we were getting ourselves into when chose honors classes, sports, extracurricular classes.

A lot of high school students have this idea in their heads that they need to do everything they can in high school, so it looks good on college applications. When in reality, it’s all about quality, not quantity. 

For all students struggling with time management, take a look at your schedule and ask yourself, “Do I need this?”

Back in elementary and middle school, coasting was what everyone did. Nobody had to study, take harder classes, or put actual work into school. The solution to my problems was a wake-up call. I hit the realization that if I want good grades, I had to put in the time for it or make time for it. Things that could help is a routine. For example, set aside a certain time to do the work that needs to get done. Plan ahead and allocate time to work. When we don’t dedicate a certain time for work, and we tell ourselves “I’ll just do it later,” something almost always comes up during that time we’re supposed to be working and later never happens. Solution, set aside time for work.