and was wondering how upperclassmen manage clubs and homework everyday.
HELLO, YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY ASKING THE RIGHT PERSON,
“You have too many extracurriculars, you’re not going to have time to deal with everything” is a common statement I hear and I deliberately choose to ignore it. I believe that if an individual can plan out their time well, they can reap the benefits of sports, clubs, and homework all together. Inevitably, that will come at the cost of some free time.
So, I will give it to you straight, I’m not the smartest or the dumbest student of the bunch, I take objectively ‘hard’ courses, I take the IB diploma, do sports all year around, participate in multiple clubs, I have a busy schedule, I sleep around 12-1 during school days, and not to mention my lunch meetings that take away my time with friends. I should be justified to answer your question
Now for the real deal, how does one do it? I have a few suggestions and things that I wish I knew when I started the IB. But remember, everyone works differently so you might not agree with all of this.
‘Kill’ procrastination
Whether you like it or not, you have to somehow reduce or stop procrastination. If you want to get enough sleep, you’ve gotta start homework the minute you get home. Especially for people who finish sports or clubs at 6, realistically, you only 4-5 hours to complete all of your work (that is also under the assumption that you don’t have a test coming up that you have to study for).
There is simply no time for procrastination.
I find making a to-do list and keeping an organised calendar for all of my deadlines really helpful. This way, I can see which assignments are more important/due soon so that I can better prioritise my tasks and use my limited time wisely.
There are also other apps such as Goodnotes or Notion which have calendar templates you can use (goodnotes cost money though :/ )
Communication
IB gets tough, but that’s just the sad reality. You must be in regular contact with your teachers. I often send short 20 sentence emails to confirm my understanding, and I think that really helped. If you ever need an extension, teachers are usually super accommodating as well (granted that you don’t ask them at 2AM the day that something is due). They know that the IB is hard - they listen to us complain all the time - so they’re very understanding.
If you don’t want to bother your teacher at 1AM, you can always text a classmate (I’m sure they’ll still be up until the early hours of the morning). If you’re worried that they’ll think you’re dumb, stop worrying! (Hopefully) you’d want to help your classmates, so there’s really no reason why they wouldn’t do the same.
Even if you might be shy, whatever, you’ll only have to see these people for 2 years at most. Before you know it, you’ll be off to college and enjoying life. You’re stuck with those people whether you like it or not, so you might as well try to make some friends.
Support group/friends
MENTAL HEALTH IS IMPORTANT. Especially when times get stressful, some people will start to experience burnout.
Make sure you have close friends who will always make a little bit of time for you and help you out! That’s what friends are for.
Calling your friends while studying might not lead to the most efficient study session, but you can guarantee that it’ll be fun. Sometimes you need to just “study” (read: gossip chat) with your bestie for a couple hours, and that’s okay too.
Learn to enjoy work
IB is painful, we all know it. Those long gruelling nights might make you hate IB even more, but you need to somehow make if ‘fun’ to not give up. Of course, this is easier if you choose courses that you actually enjoy - it’ll still be hard work, but at least it’ll be kind of interesting.
Try treating yourself to some sort of fun activity (not your phone) after accomplishing a task. For example, the weekend before finals, I treated myself to some snacks after every practice test I did.
Again, there is no set formula for what ‘fun’ is. Take some time and figure out what your ‘fun’ is. It might be a YouTube video, a walk outside, or a chapter of a book. View breaks as being productive instead of a waste of time - if you think about it, taking breaks actually makes you even more productive.
Strong mindset
IB is difficult in the sense that, if you don’t have a mindset to get yourself to do work, it is really hard to make up for that later on. You need to mentally prepare yourself for the “2 years of hell”.
This one is up to you to figure out how you can accomplish that :)
But, don’t be too harsh on yourself!
SLEEP!
This might be hard, but sleep is so, so important. I know it seems like that assignment due tomorrow is also important, but really nothing is more vital than sleep.
Set boundaries for yourself, and stick to them: “I will go to sleep at 1AM today regardless of if I finish my work or not”. Usually the idea of a deadline like this is enough to motivate me to be extra-productive and finish my homework early.
If it’s 3AM and your brain just isn’t functioning anymore, go to bed. It’s better to get some extra sleep instead of writing a crappy essay that you’ll have to redo anyway.
The irony is that I wrote this at past 12AM, and that’s just the reality of IB. It might sound super scary, but I promise that it’ll be fine. I hope that this was helpful - you can always ask us more questions!
Dear Letterbox