Time Management & Rest: Advice for Student Athletes

Written by Priscilla Doran

Photo by Danielle “Didi” Doran

Balancing sports and classes can be a full-time job for some students, and there is no instruction manual on how to navigate both. However, prioritizing time management and mental health seems to help student-athletes do their best on and off the court. 

Athletes Mikayla Gale and Sydney Enslen use planners to chart out their school assignments and athletics. “Make sure you write out weekly, ‘this assignment is due this day, this one’s due this day,’” said Gale. 

Hotel time, bus rides and spaces between classes and practice are all opportunities for planning. If students have ten to twenty minutes, Gale encourages them to pull out Brightspace and review their upcoming exams.

“Especially use unstructured time to be planning. The ‘awkward gaps’ is what I like to call it,” she said.

Enslen, who didn’t use a planner in her freshman year, does now and notices the difference. She even plans her bus- ide homework sessions: “I’ll just kind of write down the goals and the assignments that I want to complete based on how much time I have. Sometimes if it’s a [short] ride, not a lot of homework’s going to get done and that’s okay.”

Soccer player Danyil Kalynovskyi doesn’t use a planner, but agrees it’s important to stay on top of assignments. “I use sticky notes and put it on my laptop. And then I mark them off… I love that,” he said.

Instead of catching up on classes after an away game, Danyil and Gale recommend getting ahead on schoolwork before them. “Working ahead [before travel] as much as you can helps,” said Danyil. This way, students can get questions answered and homework done before classes.

Using YouTube, talking to professors and getting class notes helps Gale when it comes to missed classes. “If I don’t go to a class and it’s [really important] I would typically ask the professor before class what kind of things to be looking over. Then afterwards I would also ask someone in my class to take notes.” She has another recommendation on note-takers: “If you do ask, ask people who are strong in taking notes.”

While time management is critical, Enslen points out that it’s not the only challenge for athletes. An important – and overlooked – aspect is mental health. When disappointments happen in sports, it’s easy for it to affect academics and other areas of life.

“Motivation has been difficult,” Enslen said. “Sometimes it’s not even school that’s draining us. Something I’ve learned that is really helpful is like making sure every day I’m doing something for myself, not just for volleyball and school.” Little things like reading, writing, going outside, hanging out with loved ones and carving out time for God make a difference for her.

Danyil shares a similar experience: when the season gets intense, it’s all the more important to make time for rest. “Personally I take little breaks in between things that I do. It kind of helps me [find] balance again,” he said. When it’s easy to get trapped in a cycle of school and sports, for Enslen, prioritizing rest is “hard to do, but I think it’s really helpful, too.”