Picture this: it’s 11:30 p.m., and you’re sitting down at your desk, sweating buckets, mind racing, trying your best to finish the English essay you should have started three weeks ago. Ninth-graders—if you haven’t had this unfortunate experience before, you most definitely will in the next four years.

The question of how to get stuff done comes up often in high school. Whether it’s through conversing with peers about upcoming tests or scrolling through Instagram to watch someone explain study hacks, we all have, at some point in our lives, tried to find methods of flinging checkmarks over our (perhaps metaphorical) to-do lists.

Do you tend to encounter unforeseen circumstances that always seem to lead back to the midnight grinding session, foregoing the wonderful notion of sleep? Are you too overwhelmed by the quantity of work that you need to get done? Have you fallen victim to procrastination? Again?

Don’t worry, help is available. Here is the definitive guide to doing work in high school.

• Plan it out! Get a planner of some sort to organize your life. The number of homework assignments that you will carry in your head is exponentially higher compared to middle school. A planner, physical or digital, is vital to making sure you don’t miss any assignments. Get in the habit of using and sticking to it!

• Lock your distractions away! If you have a phone that can access social media, put it away, or ask someone else to help you manage it. Drifting away from the task at hand can cause precious hours of your life to burn up in the land of YouTube Shorts. Set up your environment to be conducive to studying and working! Listening to music can help!

• Rest well and often! To work well, you must also “not work” well. Sticking to a sleep schedule increases the efficiency and quality of your work, and getting up hourly to stretch your legs is not only good for your health (maintaining circulation), but helps clear your mind so you work even better when you come back.

• Use studies! One of the greatest blessings of Lexington High School has to be the studies you get in your first two years. It’s a natural environment that has been set up for you and an opportunity to do homework ahead of time! You will miss them in junior and senior year, I promise. (You won’t ever be productive during free blocks.)

• Ask for advice! Many different challenges come with high school, but we can make it better for ourselves if we ask for help. So many students are on the same journey as you, and sharing strategies is beneficial to everyone.

It’s important to realize that your mileage will always vary. People’s brains work differently, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that there is a surefire way of working that will lead to endless productivity. 

Don’t get discouraged. You have the time to figure things out. Now stop scrolling, set up your timers, and get in the zone! Future you in 24 hours will thank you.