Author: Diego Cusido, IB Junior
I believe the biggest problem most new IB students face is managing their time properly. I was a victim of this as well, starting assignments at 10pm and going to sleep at 2:47 am for the sole reason that I didn’t properly allocate my time. There are many ways to improve upon this skill. Having a to-do list with deadlines helps me a lot. I use an app for this called “Notion.so.'' It's right on my computer and phone, making the whole scheduling and list process quite simple and convenient. I have 3 categories on my list for the sake of prioritizing the most important and closest deadlines. My categories are to-do, doing, and done. Having the assignments I've already completed here makes it easier for me to go back and study the papers/documents. I don’t do this myself, but you can even upload a scan of your assignments to make a library of all assignments. Additionally, one necessity in my eyes for proper organization, which might seem quite obvious, is having a notebook or binder for every single class. I used to only have one for every single class and it was a mess. After I got set up with dividers in my binders and such, I felt much more productive than previously. Moreover, class time is probably your best friend. Whenever class time or free time is given, do you waste it? Of course not. Try to get as much progress done on your assignments or even do a bit of studying so that you can relax when you get home. To add, once you officially join IB in Junior year, you will be introduced to CAS. My advice is to get it done as soon as possible; the earlier the better. I once again left my CAS for the last second and it was quite stressful, especially since I had to worry about tests and quizzes. There are many places for community service, and the Key Club always has events. I would recommend joining that and doing your community service early. Talking about doing things early, don’t leave assignments for the last minute, as you will perform very poorly. Especially this year, you will get introduced to the dreaded EE and the worst thing you can do is work on it in a hurry. On big assignments like that, it is so much easier to work 10 minutes a day until it is done. If you do not have much to do in a day, I'd recommend working on the next assignment to be ahead of the schedule and not be stressed at all. However, we are all human and I can’t sugar coat it, IB is hard and it’s going to require a lot of dedication to succeed. With this advice, you should be on a pretty good path to being a model IB student.