Bruce Dias 
Being a student-athlete is both an exciting and tedious task at the same time. The exciting part about college sports is to play in pride wearing your favorite collegiate sports apparel and the tedious part is to balance your studies well with sports. We totally get how hard it can be sometimes to manage the stress of academics and playing sports. As an aspiring student-athlete, certainly, both are important for you. If you can crack it in sports, you’re all sorted for your life. But what if you didn’t crack it? Here, we’re not discouraging you by any means, but the truth should be told. It doesn’t have to be the end of the world if you don’t crack it. You can certainly try again, or if you study well in school or college, you’ll have a good backup for you to rely on.
But studies are more than just a backup to fall back upon. They are also very crucial when it comes to shaping our minds and improving our critical thinking skills. These skills don’t just help you in life but also in strategizing your gameplay on the field. Studies are way more important than you think as a student right now, but in the greater scheme of your life, that’ll always help you stand out. Think about a famous football player, Myron Rolle, who not only made a name for himself by playing college football but is also a renowned neurosurgeon. How cool is that, isn’t it?
Studies hold their own importance in life, as do sports as a student-athlete. So, here we have some cool tips to help you manage your time in studies and sports. As a student-athlete, it’s just as important for you to perform well in academics as to flex your nc dinos tees while playing.
Practical Tips to Balance Your Time as a Student-Athlete
Create a Detailed Schedule
So, the first thing you’ve to do is to make a detailed schedule for your whole week. You can also plan out your whole month, but doing it every week is more effective. Write down all your academic and sports commitments during the week, such as your class schedule, study sessions, and sports practices. This will give you an idea about how your whole week looks and help you plan your relaxation time and time for your friends more wisely.
Prioritize and Set Goals
When the time is limited, you need to prioritize different commitments smartly. Understand what your priorities are and make a plan according to that. For instance, if your exams are coming up, you can plan your day like going to the morning practice session, then studying for 6 hours straight, of course, with breaks, and then a practice session in the evening after getting back home, revising what you’d studied earlier just to memorize it better. You don’t necessarily have to plan your day like this, but you can see how we’ve prioritized it here.
Efficient Time Management Techniques
Making a weekly plan and prioritizing will only work if you’re good at time management. Otherwise, it’s of no use to devise a plan if you’ll never put it to use. If you’re bad at managing time or just want to be more efficient, consider using some time management techniques to utilize your time more wisely. One such technique we recommend is the time-blocking technique. As per this technique, you time block your every hour of the day. For instance, you wake up at 8 am, and from 8 to 9 am, you do exercises and have breakfast, and then by 10 am, you’re off to work. See how it goes!
Communicate Effectively
Open communication is key to success in every field, be it in managing your time more effectively. But how? With open and clear communication with your teachers, professors, and coaches, you can tell them about your academic and sports commitments in advance. So, if someday you cannot show up for an important practice session due to your studies, your coach will be considerate and reschedule it for you. You must understand why it’s so important to have open communication in all fields.
Embrace Self-Care
Self-care is just as important for you as your studies and sports. Juggling multiple things like studies, sports, and personal commitments is exhausting and can easily cause you to burn out. So, besides doing all those things, you need to prioritize your self-care time too. It won’t only help you rejuvenate but also ensure that you stay physically and mentally healthy.
Final Thoughts
As a student-athlete, it’s difficult to manage your time effectively to ensure you’ve enough time for studies and sports. But by using the tips mentioned above, you can manage your time more effectively and make time for self-care and your personal commitments.
