How I Keep Up With Academics, Cheer, and A Social Life

Cheer is a huge time commitment. Practices, games, competitions (if your team competes), as well as other mandatory cheer events take up a lot of time each week. Time management skills are super useful when it comes to balancing all of your activities. So that's where the advice comes in. I'm here to talk to you about how I keep up with everything and keep my sanity at the same time!

ACADEMICS

Take advantage of any free periods you have during the school day. This also includes homeroom. If you know that you'll have other homework as well as a long day of cheer ahead of you, make good use of this time. During my homeroom, I try and get my math homework done. This way, I won't have to take home the huge textbook. I also find that it's a lot harder for me to focus on math when I'm tired.
Sometimes you have to sacrifice your lunch time. If you have a lot of homework as well as hours of cheer ahead of you, you can go ahead and leave your friends, or go with a couple, to the library or a quiet classroom during lunch where you can do a little homework.
School comes first. Always. Remember that.

CHEER
When you're at cheer, focus on cheer. This is a time to escape the world for a few hours. Focus on cheering at cheer.
If you have a competition or game that you have to leave school early for, make sure you know all of the assignments you need to do. The last thing you want is a 0 in the grade book. Automatic F. Make sure you have every assignment and that you understand all of the lessons taught in class while you will be gone. Missing just a period can make a difference in your grade.
Attend Athletic Study Hall or "study tables." This is geared toward all of the school cheerleaders out there. At my school, on Thursdays, cheerleaders have the option to attend Athletic Study Hall if it's a game day. It's quiet and a good environment (at least for me) to get homework done before a game. Also, some cheer teams have study tables where the team gets together and studies, often for midterms or finals.

SOCIAL LIFE
Put in the effort to see your friends. This might be on free weekends, or days that you don't have practice or some other cheer-related event to attend. You need to put forth the effort if you want to maintain friendships. Your friends, especially if they are other athletes, will understand how it's hard to balance time.
If you have friends with coordinating schedules, seeing each other will be loads easier. For example, if your friend's schedule for soccer is the same as your schedule for cheer, you can work around it and find time to hang out.

I hope you guys enjoyed my FIRST POST on To Nfinity and Beyond! Don't forget to comment requests!