By: Elly Gonzales

      When entering middle school, or any class in general, there are major obstacles you have to encounter, one of those being that you have to find a way to balance your time equally. In my 8th grade PLTW class we go through different tasks we call, “modules”. When time gets tight it can be hard to find a way to get your work done and still have time to balance other schoolwork, but some may ask, “Why is this important?

When your stress increases, your risk of heart disease increases by 40%, your risk of heart attack increases by 25%, and your risk of stroke increases by 50%! So, take a middle/high school student’s life for example. 7 hours of school, typically 1-3 hours of homework, trying to get enough sleep and the fear of living without a social life. If not balanced correctly, you may overload on thinking, or run out of time.

     After knowing these statistics, I tried to better my health and worth of time. I took things day by day and decided to try a time schedule. I knew that maybe once or twice I would not fit the schedule (maybe too much homework, etc.) but I knew it was worth a shot to decrease the amount of stress I had piled on all at once. To my surprise, I was no longer fitting in irrelevant activities, and focusing on things that needed time. This method along with many other’s helped me to come to terms with the fact that we may always be running out of time, but with the help of the balancing act, the important things will show.