As a teenager myself, we often struggle to keep on top of our school work as well as training. Triathlons is becoming a very popular sport for adolescents, but how can we better manage our social life, school and training?
Here are a few tips that have helped me;
Work ahead
There are plenty of students who tend to postpone studies until the very end. Maybe you’re one of them, maybe you aren’t. It’s a very bad habit for various reasons. First, it increases the amount of stress in your life: you find yourself in stressful situations more often and what’s even worse is that you create them with your own hands. Second, it worsens the quality of the work you submit.
Being an athlete, you must know that the more you train, the better the result will be. The same goes for studies: the more time you spend on completing an assignment, the better it would be. That’s why always try to finish your tasks as quickly as you can so you’ll have more time to polish them later or simply will be able to focus on more important tasks.
Don’t plan more than you can handle
Not all people are equally good in understanding where their time goes and how much they can handle in a day. To some of us, this isn’t a problem at all. To some, however, that could be a constant struggle. A good way to find out how productive you are, is to write down everything you do during the day as it’s a good indication of where you spend least or most of your time. For example, TV shows or social media steal a lot of my time.
Use your travel time to and from school, practices, and races wisely
Review notes, read chapters, study, or read books. Another tip – use audiobooks while traveling and read along.
Get organised and stay organised
Use a big calendar for school and sports such as swimming, cycling and running as it’s a lot of sports to handle as well as school work. Write down all due dates for schoolwork, projects, sports practices and races. Every week revisit your calendar and make corrections.
Know when to stop
Don’t overwhelm yourself.
Stay healthy. Wearing yourself out at training or staying up all night to finish a paper can take its toll on you. You won’t be any good for yourself on race day if you’re not in peak condition. Likewise, how can you concentrate in class if you are drained physically and emotionally?
Know your limits and don’t attempt to exceed them.