How did you balance everything in Year Eleven? (1 Viewer)

[ingeniarius]

I'm looking for some advice regarding how people balanced school, work, and after school activities during Year Eleven, especially if they have to travel for school like I do. I have a casual job which I have no desire to leave, and I also have one after school activity one night a week, with competitions from late August-early December, and I'm currently enquiring into tutoring for maths and science. I know of people who do much more and still manage to get amazing marks, so I would love to know how you managed to pull it all off, or if I'm in over my head. Kind regards

 

[strawberrye]

I think the best way to balance everything is to make a weekly schedule, this way, you would be able to see how much time you have to organise your studies and you can reduce the stress from worrying about not being able to complete your study goals and objectives. Basically, whenever you are doing your job or other extra-curricular, don't think about your school work, and like wise, make sure that when you do anything-you don't think about other things, just focus on that thing-and you will be fine. I think the key is to just plan how you are going to use your time effectively and efficiently. Hope this helps and I wish you all the best for the next two years

 

[rumbleroar]

Time management is so crucial if you want to balance anything. different people have different ways of organising their time, so experiment with methods that will work best for you. Best tip is to start everything the moment you get it. Over said, but you have no idea how many people neglect this concept of starting early so they're not in a massive frenzy by the end of it.

With achieving amazing marks, apply yourself. Don't think about rankings and all that because it will only hinder your performance, ironically. I learnt this the hard way and I really regret approaching my first set of assessments with that mindset. Just try your hardest and it often prevails.

With managing tutoring, I always did my work straight after I got it so I could get it out of the way. I used tutoring as a period of learning, as tutoring is often ahead of school, and school as a time of revision. It depends on what works for you. I did maths, English and physics tutoring in year 11 and in year 12, I'm going only for English and mx2

If you need any more advice, feel free to hit me up with a PM.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[LoveHateSchool]

strawberrye and rumbleroar are on the absolute money as always.

I think it's really important to recognise what is a need, what is high priority and low priority. If you have something due in two days, you need to be working on it. Something due in a week is high priority. For a break, wasting the time on reddit won't be as refreshing as going for a half hour walk with the dogs etc. It's with that mindset you can maximise time and minimise stress.

Have weekly goals (or monthly goals depending on frame) to have certain things done. A goal like come 1st-3rd in everything at prelim exams will be less likely to work if you don't break it down into achievable snatches. And then ticking things of you get a win down, and if you have anything like my personality, I work extremely well of positivity, and negative motivation (fear or a bad result) only hinders me further the next time around.

If you don't meet a goal, be constructively kind to yourself to find one thing you could do better next time like say you only got a C on your story-seek a second opinion on your creative or practice writing creatives off stimuli etc. Don't negative self talk and be like "OMG I suck at writing etc. I'mma get a band 3 etc.". Only constructive to move forward better for the next task.

Some people are big timetable people, but for someone like you with a seasonal sport or comp, there are times when you will have more EC commitment, that's why I'd think to do lists would work better for you. Weeks when I didn't have a comp I would have like an extra 5 hrs to play with and stuff, so yeah, for people with a variable lifestyle I find they work best

yr 11 is the time to experiment with study habits, and also getting a feel for how many commitments to take on in yr 12

 

[ingeniarius]

Thank you all very much, I have some idea of how I'm going to plan next year now I'm going to take advantage of studying at lunch time and in the mornings at school. Thank you again!

 

[fizzbylightning]

You're no way in over your head. If you want to make it happen, you can make it happen.

It's always been about mindset.

What you need to do is get a blank timetable schedule (Mon-Sun) and put in all your commitments. If you want to keep your job, you can keep it. It doesn't sound like you have too many commitments outside academia so you should be fine. I found that with a full schedule, I had a minimum amount of time to "procrastinate" but it depends on how you work so use year 11 to figure out what works for you in all aspects. So this means what times you work most efficiently, if taking notes works for you, etc.

Be consistent. Make solid goals (not airy fairy ones like I did) - if you want a certain number for your ATAR, print it out in big font and plaster it in your room someplace. It doesn't matter if you have a goal which seems out of your reach. Aim high. Aim for high distinctions. Never aim for a pass. Goal-making = purpose = motivation. I didn't have any goals in high school so I really questioned my motivation several times throughout the HSC.

 

[gwilymprice]

Time management, belief, and a positive attitude! Just to keep it short

 

[enigma_1]

Haha I kept all my extracurriculars and extra stuff in year 11. But I've stopped it now for year 12.

Some things I did were:
- Read/revise notes on the train whilst travelling
- Try extremely hard to not go off track (because it wastes a lot of time)
- Not watch tv (unless it's QANDA or Mediawatch or Inside Business or something)
- Not play computer games (unless it was in my break)
- Cut off a few friend contacts -> talk to minimal people
- Taking a nap in the car all the time to recover lost sleep
- Get 7 hours of sleep
- Go on BoredOfStudies when I lacked motivation (which was nearly every day haha)


I didn't perform that well in year 11 but I hope I can in year 12. Best of luck and you can definitely do it.
Maybe the casual job will have to be considered if you think you're not getting enough time.
Also, harder subjects - Eco, Physics, MX1,2, EX1,2, Chem may require more attention so you may need to factor that in.

 

[ingeniarius]

- Not play computer games (unless it was in my break)

I read just as I got off a two hour Osu! binge ahahah
Thank you all, this advice is gold!