Being able to manage my Time by Yuanzhe

Being able to manage my Time by Yuanzhe - May 2026 Scholarship Essay

I remember how difficult it was for me to find time to do schoolwork and apply for scholarships, but I have come a long way from that. In the past, I remembered how school was so overwhelming that I always focused on finishing my assignments. I would always think about making sure that everything was done. However, this prevented me from applying to scholarships that could help pay for parts of my tuition. Instead, I felt that the only time that I could do scholarships is when school was on break. This made me feel hopeless and I thought that this had to be the way.

Now I have come a long way, and I am better at managing my time. The thing is that I didn’t realize that I have a lot of hours in the day that could be used not just studying but scholarships as well. Another thing I realized is that you don’t need to read something to ad nauseam to understand the material. Instead, read it twice and then take notes on the main ideas. The other thing that has helped me with my time management is that I have been more willing to listen to my providers and work with them. One thing that has helped me is when I checked myself into a hospital.

During my time in the hospital, I took the time to take deep breaths and decompress myself. In the hospital, I realize that you shouldn’t let other distractions bother you and take your attention away from the thing that matters the most. Instead, it’s important that you take good care of yourself. Being at the hospital has allowed me to decompress and realize that there are ways on how you can make use of time throughout your day. No matter how you are, everyone has only 24 hours, but that doesn’t mean it’s nothing. At the hospital, I found that there are times in which I could use it to journal or focus on therapy.

Eventually, once I left the hospital, I took the lessons that I learned and applied it to my life. I can’t believe that I have come a long way from struggling with time management. What I have done to fight this; I have decided to wake up early at 5:30 a.m. because I realize that getting into the habit of waking up early is great for brainpower. Compared to sleeping in, when I would feel lethargic and struggle to do things, waking up early allows my brain to feel empowered. This has opened more time for me to apply and focus on scholarships. I realized that I can just focus on school assignments for some time before I start to apply for scholarships.

It’s not just that I found extra time to do scholarship work at home, I have used the extra free time that occurs in my club meeting times. Before the start of any club meetings, I would open the computer and look for a scholarship to apply for and then start working on it. My brain is concentrating the hardest and I always finish my scholarships on time. This is why I am so great at managing my time because I realize that no matter what you can always find time. Another way I have found ways to fix my time management problem is arranging my priorities.

I have decided that there are urgent and need to be done that aren’t urgent and you want to do. This arrangement of priorities has allowed me to open more opportunities for me to focus on school and scholarships. Having more free time has allowed me to focus on exercising. Turns out when it comes to accomplishing the things that you need to succeed in life, there will always be lots of opportunities. I am happy that I have found ways to get involved in many extracurriculars, scholarships, and other things and still find time to apply for scholarships.