With the first month of the school year coming to a close, your extracurriculars, job hours, and homework may be piling up. You may be asking yourself: Where is my own time? 

Now is the best time to be implementing strategies to develop habits and to ensure you can make some time for yourself. 

Start with a few of these tips to help your day along:

Utilize apps and websites like Google Calendar, Notion, or Reminders to organize your days. 

When you are able to visualize your daily schedule, you can find times throughout the day to take a break from your schoolwork and do something you personally enjoy. 

Practice a new hobby in your free time. 

By practicing a new hobby, you develop your problem-solving, communication, and coordination skills. 

Additionally, according to a study conducted in New Zealand, practicing a new hobby can increase your creativity, which will increase your overall well-being in the long run. 

Lead a healthy lifestyle. 

Although the commonly heard phrase “living a healthy lifestyle” is very broad, its importance does not diminish. 

Get eight hours of sleep every night. 

The average teen who loses only 39 minutes of sleep each night reports having a harder time at school. 

Spend some free time exercising. Exercise even reduces your chances of cognitive decline, thereby increasing your productivity throughout the day.

Have nothing else to do? Take a cat nap. 

A nap of 20 to 30 minutes in length avoids entering into deep sleep, which is the culprit for why you feel so groggy after an hour (or even longer) nap. 

Napping for a shorter time frame increases your alertness and improves memory.

Sponsored by @craig.mindsmatter on Instagram