Sometimes life gets messy. Actually, not sometimes, most of the time it feels like we have so much going on that its hard to focus on one thing at a time. This is especially true when you have something big coming up like GCSE's. But, there is a simple solution to this!
We all have that one place in our room where we just dump stuff in a pile. For me, its on top of a chair and I dump all of my clothes on it, laptop, headphones and books. It's a mess. The only way to deal with that mess is to take each item and put it away. Then the mess is gone and everything is clear. You can apply this analogy to your life.
At the moment it feels like you have so much going on with school, revision and social life building up into one massive pile. The only way to deal with this is to deal with each thing serperatly. Lets start with school. When you're at school you need to put all of your focus into it. You might be thinking "well yeah duh what else was I going to do?" but think about it. During my GCSE's I spent a large portion of my time thinking how "I could be doing revision right now". Instead of focusing on what I was being taught I was focusing on what I was going to do later. This was until I realised that I needed to separate my mess and focus on one thing at a time. School can be boring and exhausting but you have to go to it in order to learn the content for your exams therefore, you should make the most of it by focusing all of your time and energy on that. If your school offers revision sessions go to every single one! It doesn't matter if you understand something perfectly. Whats the harm in getting extra practice? This will help that niggling thought of: "I could be revising right now".
When you get home from school do your homework straight away. Usually at GCSE all the homework you get is revision anyway so ideally it doesn't take too long. If you do it as soon as you get home, not only will you feel accomplished but you will also have time to tackle your revison.
Revision. My number one piece of advice for revision is to do a timetable and stick to it! Make a revision timetable that you can use every week. Get into the routine of coming home and doing the revision you have set yourself. It will help you stay focus and manage your time well. When I got to GCSE's I made a revision timetable for after school and at the weekend and it helped massively! If I had so much homework I would do that first then I would try to at least do an hour of revision (if it didn't go over my cut off point) but, luckily homework had subsided a little by this point.
On my timetable I blocked out "break" sessions and also "clubs". This way it was easy to see how I needed to fit my revision around my extra curricular. Don't stop doing your clubs because of your revision. You can do both easily your just have to manage your revision around them. This may mean doing more revision on a different day to make up for the time spent on extra curricular.
Lastly, social life. When it comes to GCSE's I was pretty focused on my revision. My way of relaxing was doing stuff with my family, occasionally meeting up with friends and watching Netflix. You have to find a way of relaxing that suits you! It's fine to take a break from revision. You have to, otherwise your brain would explode! Weekends are usually best for social activities because you have more time and therefore your day will be more spread out and you can still do revision. Whenever I went out with friends I would always, make sure I had at least done some sort of revision that day or planned to do some the next day or day before to make up for it.
Juggling all of these factors can be difficult and the only way to do it is to do a timetable. Its easier to visually see what your spending your time on! Here is a picture of my after school timetable during GCSE's. (Two time-tables for the two different weeks)
I printed my timetable off and stuck it on my mirror so that I knew exactly what I was doing each morning before I started my day. I am convinced this timetable helped me achieve the grades I did because I was able to stick to it. Make it colourful! This will help you visually see how much time you're spending on each subject.
So, the best way to juggle your mess is to clean it up by making a plan! I hope this helps.
-Holly :)
P.s I write all blog posts that are suggested to me. Dm me @studentstudyhelp on Instagram for any further advice or to request future blog posts!