How to Manage High School Classes, Homework, Sports and Keeping Up with Household Chores

Last Updated: October 21, 2021

Your high school years are some of the most fun and overwhelming years of your life. Balancing your school work, your athletic commitments as well as your home and personal life can be nothing short of exhausting. Luckily, if you spend a little time figuring out how to manage everything, you may find you’re able to clear away much of the stress, leaving you free to enjoy your high school experience.

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Staying On Top of Your School Work

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Prioritize academics. The reason you are in high school is to learn, so that has to be your primary focus. If you are balancing a full class load as well as a full practice and game schedule, that can be incredibly tricky. Make sure that both you and your coaches know that your schoolwork comes first.^{[1]
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Expert Source

Ashley Pritchard, MA
Academic & School Counselor
Expert Interview. 4 November 2019.}
- If you know you’re going to be missing class because of an away game, talk to your teachers ahead of time to find out what assignments you’ll be missing.
- Plan to turn in your assignments early if you’re going to be missing class, or if that’s not possible, ask your teacher for an extension.
2
Hire a tutor. Student athletes often miss class for games, and this makes it easier for you to fall behind. If you feel that you’re not fully understanding your class work, hire a tutor to help you keep up with the rest of your classmates.^{[2]
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Expert Source

Ashley Pritchard, MA
Academic & School Counselor
Expert Interview. 4 November 2019.}
- If you can’t afford a tutor, ask your teacher if you can come in for extra help after school.
- The more you fall behind, the harder it will be to catch up later. You’ll save yourself a lot of time and stress by staying on top of the work.
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3
Take advantage of free time. If you have a study hall in school, don’t use that time to goof off with friends. Instead, use it to cross a homework assignment off your list. If your teacher gives you time to work on homework in class, take advantage of that time as well.^{[3]
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- If you’re traveling on the bus to an away game, use the time on the bus to work on assignments or do your class reading.
- Learn how to multi-task: do your reading while eating breakfast or study for a test while blow drying your hair.

Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Managing Your Time and Staying Organized

1
Create systems that work for you. The more you have going on, the easier it is for something to slip through the cracks. Keep your bedroom, your locker, your car and your backpack neat and you won’t waste time looking for assignments you have lost or jerseys that have gone missing.^{[4]
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- Create a filing system that will help you keep track of all your current assignments.
- Color code your folders and assignments by using different colored labels for each class.
2
Create a schedule. It’s very easy to look at all the work you have to do and the little time you have to complete it and get completely overwhelmed. Buy a calendar or paper planner and use it to make a weekly schedule for yourself.^{[5]
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Expert Source

Ashley Pritchard, MA
Academic & School Counselor
Expert Interview. 4 November 2019.}
- Mark off all the time you have classes or practices, then look at the rest of your schedule and figure out when you have free time to do homework and chores.
- Make sure to give yourself some free time each week to relax, or you will get burned out.
- If you have trouble getting organized, ask a parent or guidance counselor to help you.
3
Plan ahead. If a teacher assigns a project a month in advance and you know it’s going to be due just as basketball season is heating up, get that project out of the way early. The earlier you can get something done, the less stress you’ll feel.
- Try to split up the work – work on your project for 20 minutes every day, instead of working on it for a three hour chunk on one day.
- Don’t cram. Cramming the night before a test is far less effective than actual studying and will exhaust your brain and stress you out.
4
Use your weekends. Your weekends are incredibly important – they give you time to reset, catch up on sleep and provide much needed “me time.” But you don’t need to spend your entire weekend chilling out.
- Spend two hours on Saturday getting a jumpstart on your assignments for next week.
- Spend an hour on Sunday getting organized and making a to-do list for the upcoming week.
5
Do all your chores on one day. If your parents are comfortable with it, do all your chores on one day. Getting all your chores done at once is more efficient and you’ll feel better knowing that you’ve finished them all and don’t have to worry about them for another week.^{[6]
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- If your chores are daily chores, like making the bed, try to do them first thing when you wake up to get them out of the way early.
- Multi-task during chore time. If you have a book to read for English class, get the audio recording and listen to it while doing your laundry.

Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Maximizing Your Mental and Physical Health

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Take something off your plate. Sometimes, life gets too busy and it’s impossible to get everything done. If this is the case for you, consider quitting or going on a temporary hiatus from your team.^{[7]
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- You can’t exactly quit going to school or doing homework or chores, so sports are the easiest commitment to eliminate.
- If you’re incredibly busy at school or with practice, ask your parents if you can take a week off from doing chores (tell them you’ll do double next week to make up for it).
2
Stay healthy. If you’re constantly falling ill because of how strenuous your life is, you’re not going to be able to keep up with everything that’s going on. Eat a healthy diet, get between 7 – 8 hours of sleep each night and avoid drugs and alcohol.^{[8]
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- Have a water bottle with you at all times. Drinking water will help keep you hydrated and feeling good.
- Eat fruits and vegetables. These will help your immune system and make you less susceptible to falling ill.
- Make a bedtime and stick to it. If you’re not sleeping regularly, it will be impossible for you to function at the top of your game.
3
Stay away from social media. Facebook is fun, but it’s also a distraction from everything else you have going on. Give yourself 30 minutes every day to be on social media, and other than that, stay away from it.
- Use social media as a reward – if you finish all your work for the day, you can spend more time checking Twitter.
- Give yourself an hour on social on weekends as a reward for working so hard during the week.

Expert Q&A

Question

How does homework interfere with sports?

Ashley Pritchard, MA
School Counselor
Ashley Pritchard is an Academic and School Counselor at Delaware Valley Regional High School in Frenchtown, New Jersey. Ashley has over 3 years of high school, college, and career counseling experience. She has an MA in School Counseling with a specialization in Mental Health from Caldwell University and is certified as an Independent Education Consultant through the University of California, Irvine.

Ashley Pritchard, MA

School Counselor

Expert Answer

Ideally, your homework should not interfere with your sports at all. Your academics are extremely important and if you're struggling to balance athletics and academics, it's time to talk to your parents, coaches, and teachers.