Time Management for sports students: 9 tips to find time for both sports training and education

Generally, the better a student’s athletic performance is, the worse are academic achievements. A busy schedule of training and competitions makes it challenging to attend classes and do homework. Students have to ask for help at cheap essay services, skip classes, or sacrifice their sleep and health to succeed in all activities. Sooner or later, the future champion faces the question: should he quit professional sports or forget about education? Can sports interfere with studies? This is a difficult choice that can be avoided.

Estimate the chances of becoming a sports superstar

Unfortunately, not everyone becomes a champion. If the chances of becoming a new Michael Jordan, Cristiano Ronaldo, or Serena Williams, to put it mildly, are not very high, then you should choose to study and leave the sport as a hobby and a way to keep fit. A sporting career ends quickly, by the age of 30-35. Some athletes leave sport even earlier because of injuries, a series of failures, and for other reasons. Many are struggling to keep up with the fact that they are out of business and have problems with alcohol, drugs, etc. It is quite difficult to force yourself to go to college at a more mature age. That’s why it’s so important for young people to learn a profession so they can go through this period as softly as possible. We do not encourage young people to quit the sport, but it is worth setting your priorities clearly.

Priorities

Everyone needs to establish clear priorities. To make it easier to decide, take a piece of paper and depict your desires on it as a kind of circles, in the center of which you put yourself (the closer the circle to you is, the more important is this or that thing for you). The importance is determined by several criteria and depends not only on material benefits but also on the emotions that you experience in the process. Once you have set your priorities, start planning your time. Yes, “living on schedule” is possible. It really works. However, schedules and plans have to be changed periodically, or sooner or later, your life will become monotonous and boring.

Recovery

In sports, just like in every other sphere of life, you need to know the measure. A state in which your body rejects physical activity is half the trouble. But when you start feeling dizzy and nauseous from training, and you still have to attend them, it makes you want to cry. In order not to drive yourself to frenzy, you need to listen to your body. If your muscles hurt terribly, and you have absolutely no mood to do sports, think about whether such training will be useful. I don’t think so. It’s always important to remember: nothing is more important for an athlete than his physical state. No one needs sick sportspeople. And if so, you need to take care of your health and strengthen it as much as possible (but certainly, not vice versa). Yes, there will be those who will disagree and mention the strict coach and discipline. There are no situations that cannot be solved. You can always find a compromise.

How to find time for both education and sports?

Time management is a great skill that, once mastered, you can train, even if there isn’t room to swing a cat in your schedule. If you feel that there are too few hours in a day and you just have no idea how some people manage to cope with their studies, part-time jobs, sports, hobbies, and also keep the room perfectly clean, then our advice will be helpful to you. These easy tips will help you find time even when it seems that you don’t have it anymore.

Start a notebook, planner, or install an application on your phone.
Specify separately all your duties and activities: classes, cleaning, homework, sports, meeting with friends, etc. Don’t miss out on small things, even like going to the hair salon or grocery store.
Determine the average amount of time you need and want to spend on a particular activity. For example, working on a report will take an hour, and a morning run and shower will take 45 minutes. Do not overestimate or underestimate your strengths and capabilities. Try to evaluate yourself adequately.
Let’s get back to the priorities. Think about which activities are most important to you and which are least important. You can make a list of your lessons, homework, and responsibilities that are essential and free-time activities that are not obligatory. If you find it difficult to highlight the most important things, the Franklin Pyramid or Eisenhower Matrix can help.
Based on your list and estimate of time, you can create your own schedule that will make your routine easier to follow. Don’t put yourself under excessive stress because you haven’t done something on time, or your schedule has gone out of order. Run analysis and change your time.
Refuse to multitask. Our brain doesn’t really know how to multitask. When you try to focus on a few things at once, it has to switch constantly. That, for one thing, lowers the speed of work. And secondly, it takes up more energy. So it’s much more effective to immerse yourself in one task fully, and only after you’ve done it, start the next one.
Of course, you’ll have new things coming up every day besides your routine tasks. Be sure to record the tasks and their deadlines. We recommend using several lists for that:

global – with long-term plans and goals;
monthly – with tasks for the month;
daily – with a clear to-do list for the day.

Make a daily to-do list of tasks for the next day every night. Opposite each one, write down the goals according to the monthly and global to-do lists.

Remember that the best is the enemy of the good. Perfectionism can play an evil joke on you if you don’t keep it under control. Striving for the perfect result can lead to delays because you’ll never have time to do everything “right”. But it’s better to do it imperfectly than not doing it at all. Otherwise, it won’t be long before you have a nervous breakdown.