One of the worst feelings, when school begins, is when we feel that we will eventually have to sacrifice our hobbies for school, and that is understandable, given that teachers and school, in general, assume that the only thing going on in your life is just assignments and homework (“you’re a child, what else would you do without school?” -school logic, probably).
But maybe it does not have to be that way, maybe if you manage to balance your hobbies time with your schoolwork time, you could still maintain your hobbies.
One of the hobbies that I had for the last few years of high school was debate, it was a unique hobby (relative to my schoolmates) so if I wanted to engage, I had to form connections with people outside of my city entirely. It took a lot of time to meet people and attend debate events, so when summer ended, I immediately felt that this hobby would be compromised. Still, though, I gave it plenty of time and completed all my schoolwork, and I was able to do so because I figured out how I could balance the two. Every hobby and school is different, but it is all about how you time your days and hours throughout the week, and your hobbies can be well maintained if you time your weeks like the following:
Dedicate at least one day to not studying at all
Even though you may be pressured with exams & assignments all coming together, you need to try and dedicate at least one day of the week (a weekend day, probably) to not opening a schoolbook and forgetting that school exists. I was enrolled in 5 advanced subjects, four sciences, and one social, and still was able to dedicate a day where I did not touch anything school-related.
This tremendously helps because it not only gives you plenty of time to engage in your hobby, but it also reminds you that life exists outside of school and schoolwork, and it will give you energy for the rest of the week. Try as much as you can to complete all your work beforehand or to empty your schedule to free up just one day of the week - it is definitely worth it for the hobby and the energy boost.
By the way, emphasis on the “at least one day”, because sometimes I would just sleep through the entire break day, so maybe it is helpful to free up more than a day when you can.
Leave at least 1 hour of hobby time a day
Every student prefers to schedule their work in their own way, but you should know that it is
always convenient for your hobby if it has its own time every day. This is really the only way you can continue practicing your hobby if you want to do so on a daily basis. What is inconvenient for your hobby is if you treat it like a smaller part of your life than school, even during test seasons, you must consider your hobby as a big part of your life, and if you want to do so then you should invest at least one hour every day towards it. Hobbies and our interest in them can fade away very quickly if we do not invest our daily time and effort into them.
Remain active in your hobbys community(s)
This is not related to time, but it is an effective way to ensure that your hobby is still a part of
your life even with school. Remaining active in the community includes talking with people about it who share your hobby, or simply scrolling through an Instagram account dedicated to it.
What is important is that, with school, you are still refreshed about your hobby, and your interest in it is still very high. It takes almost no time to watch a short video, read a post, or talk to someone about it every day, so make sure that you are active amongst people about your hobby, as in really pressuring times, it could be the only way you could maintain your hobby.
Hope this helped,
Malek
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