Emily Wu

Keeping a balanced schedule can be hard in a 24-hour day.

Aug. 13 rolled around the corner far too soon this year, and I was far from excited to start class again. Stepping foot on campus that Tuesday meant starting the infamous junior year — the rumored two semesters of brutal AP classes, all-nighters to finish projects and sleep-inducing APUSH documentaries. 

As a sophomore last year, I was already struggling with consistently getting enough hours of sleep and turning in my assignments on time, so this year with APUSH, English 11 Honors, AP Physics 1 and 2 and AP Chemistry on my schedule, I knew that something had to change. 

It’s been about a month since school started, and a few tips and tricks have worked to keep me afloat and well rested so far. Everyone’s schedule and work style is a little different, but this routine has helped me make it through my work more efficiently.

The first — and most important — habit I needed to fix from sophomore year was my messed up sleep schedule. It doesn’t take a somnologist to tell you that going to bed past 1 a.m. on a daily basis and passing out for an hour when school finally ends isn’t healthy.

Is it almost eight hours of sleep? Yes. But as someone who needed a lot of deep sleep to function properly, I found my eyelids drooping — head only supported upright by my arm — in over half of my classes last year. Waking up after my nap and subsequent Instagram scrolling time, I only started doing my homework after dinner, keeping me in an endless cycle of sleeping late and taking recovery naps last year.

This year, however, I have been consistently going to sleep before midnight, usually aiming for around 11-11:30 p.m., with only a few exceptions. Waking up just before 8 a.m., I get around eight and a half to nine hours of sleep every night (Yay! It’s within the 8 to 10-hour recommendation that MOSAIC drills us on every year.) 

Being asleep at 11 p.m. would have seemed crazy to sophomore me, but three days before the start of the semester, I tried it for the first time and woke up with an incomparable sense of rejuvenation. Just the previous night, I stayed up until 3:30 a.m., binging yet another Webtoons series and paid the consequences the next day. Absolutely exhausted, I decided to ignore my instincts and dive straight to bed at 10 p.m. For the first time in weeks, I woke up naturally before my four consecutive alarms blew out my eardrums. It felt amazing, and I had so much more energy to carry on throughout the day. 

To all of you out there who think sleeping early is for the weak, know that the brief glory you get from telling your friends you went to bed at 4 a.m. isn’t worth it. Competing for the unhealthiest sleep schedule, though fun at times, is ultimately at your detriment. 

Sleeping early doesn’t just take hours out of your day. With more energy, it’s easier to focus and work for longer periods of time. This is where step two of my plan to lead a healthier lifestyle came into play: making sure that I start working on homework right after school ends. While rotting away in my bed afterschool is certainly tempting, finishing things early makes my life less stressful and means I can sleep earlier. 

 The easiest way to resist rotting in bed is to not have a bed available — so I’ve been staying in the school library or the Student Center after school. Working until 5 or 6 p.m. on most days with some friends, I return home for dinner with almost all of my homework for the day completed. At home, as a result, I can rest, relax or do whatever else I need to do.

If you’re someone like me who struggles trying to be productive alone, try to find yourself an after school-study group. Ask your friends to stay, or even make new ones — there’s a lot of us in the Student Center every weekday. 

Additionally, my friend set my screen time passcode so that I can only use Instagram for 30 minutes each day now, significantly reducing the time I stay glued to my phone. I also keep an old-fashioned paper planner with tasks I want to complete that day, and although I almost never finish, crossing out the tasks that I did complete serves as a nice boost of dopamine. 

So far, these new habits have been helping me handle the ever-increasing workload of junior year. Here’s hoping they allow me to reach the finish line next June without any major stumbles along the way, and maybe you can join me too.