Balancing Activities: How to Manage Your Time and Succeed

For students and professionals alike, time management can often become an area of struggle. High achievers tend to try to give their best effort in all areas of their lives. However, if you’re a very involved person, you understand how demanding and busy your schedule can become. Whether you are in DECA, other clubs, on sports teams, or have a job, you can rack up deadlines and responsibilities quite frequently. 

Here’s how to take control of your time and find balance, even with a packed schedule:

1. Know Where Your Time Is Going

Before you can manage your time, you need to understand how you're currently using it. For a few days, track how much time you tend to spend on schoolwork, meetings, social media, sports, etc. Remember to be honest with yourself about what you’re realistically spending your time on. 

Taking note of this can improve your self awareness and help you make productive changes. 

2. Use a Calendar 

There are many different avenues to plan your life out on a calendar. Try out a few ways and find out which works best for you. Whether that be an app or Google calendar or a physical planner, there is something for everyone. Use this to keep track of your commitments and make a plan in order to maximize your time. A benefit of keeping note of your responsibilities all in one place, is you eliminate the chance for “double booking” and can easily make plans based on your availability. 

3. Find Your Priorities

Not everything on your to-do list deserves your attention at once. Be sure to ask yourself:

• What’s urgent?

• What’s important?

• What can wait?

• What can I delegate?

Start each day or week by identifying your top 3 priorities, and tackle those first.

5. Learn to say “No”

Being involved is great, but over-committing leads to burnout. You don’t have to say yes to every opportunity. If it doesn’t align with your goals, values, or available time, it’s okay to pass.

Protecting your time is part of respecting your responsibilities and your well-being.

6. Use Your “In-Between” Time Wisely

You don’t need huge chunks of time to be productive. Use short breaks between classes or meetings to review notes, reply to emails, or plan your next day.

These mini-sessions add up and can help reduce your evening workload.

7. Build in Rest and Recharge Time

Scheduling rest might sound weird--but it’s necessary. Set aside time for things you enjoy. Even if you are swamped with work, take time during your weekend to hang out with friends and recharge. 

Rest isn’t a luxury--it’s a necessity. 

8. Reflect and Recalibrate 

Every so often, take some time to look at what you’re currently doing and how you can improve. There are always ways to make your routine more productive and since this is your routine, it must reflect the workload that you can currently keep up with. No one is perfect and the amount of work we can handle isn’t always stagnant, so keep note of how much you can handle. 

Being highly involved is something to be proud of--it means you’re engaged, motivated, and building a strong foundation for the future. But involvement doesn’t have to come at the cost of your mental health.

With intentional time management, you can stay on top of your responsibilities and make time for the things and people that matter most.

Written by Aurora Tru Henrichs, Region 1 President