As a high school senior, I and thousands of other students across the country have come to realize that we had no clue what we were in for. The romanticism of senior year has flooded our minds: senior sunrise, football games, and more. But as the first semester has gone in full swing, things aren’t looking so promising. 

As seniors, we have a lot more expectations than just applying for college or preparing for life beyond high school that don’t get the recognition they deserve. By senior year, many of us have acquired leadership positions in clubs and sports, are older siblings, are taking harder classes than ever before, and are stuck running errands as we are finally licensed. The responsibilities are endless. 

I’ve found that with this much on my plate, going off of memory won’t cut it. Using an assignment notebook won’t cut it. Even my Google Keep with all of my assignments organized by class, color, deadline, and description will not cut it. What will cut it? Races. Specifically, to-do list races. 

I have laid out my life in my Google Keep, organized and updated every second of the day. Still, I simply cannot seem to make good decisions when it comes to what work I do when.

 

 

 

 

There is something special about making a to-do list rather than having all of your work sitting in front of you and picking the order in which you go. The process of making a to-do list requires a lot of thought, making your work more productive. Let me lay it out for you: 

• Deadlines: As you make your list, it is important to consider deadlines, prioritizing work that is due sooner rather than later. 

• Time spent: As an athlete and leader in multiple clubs, considering how much time I am able to dedicate to my work each day is important. Thus, I might consider doing smaller assignments (that are high priority) on a day that I have a match, and leave things such as essays and larger assignments (that I have some time to complete) to be done the next day after practice 

• Motivation Level: Chances are right as you start your to-do list, you will have a lot of motivation and energy, determined to check everything off. Considering your motivation level might lead you to put harder assignments that require more brain power (not necessarily more time) higher on the to-do list so that you can save the easy stuff for later. 

Intentionally considering these factors as you decide your workload can create a much more productive work session. 

Now that we’ve created our lists, where are we finding the motivation to actually complete it? Peer pressure. Now, I don’t mean out of fear and embarrassment, but rather friendly competition among your friends. There is a certain type of comfort in knowing that your friends are struggling with you, giving you motivation to keep working. A no-stakes, motivation booster pushing you to keep going. 

My friend and I came up with this idea a few weeks ago, as we had made a plan to spend the entire day at the library with goals to finish essays for multiple colleges, study for tests and quizzes, finish assignments, and plan for club meetings that we have to run in the following week. Both of us being motivated by competition, we decided to write our to-do lists on the board and race. 

Here is what it looked like: 

 

This was all we needed. Our competitive nature took it from there and suddenly we were checking things off left and right. We had officially cracked the code to our productivity. Since then, it has been a series of to-do list races among my friends. 

We’ve even included virtual ones for days we are working from home: same motivation, same productivity. We get notifications from the notesapp when something is checked off, and we like to send each other text updates throughout the night to notify the other of a completed task. All of this within itself creates an encouraging and motivating working environment amidst all of the stress and responsibilities that we have been bombarded with in recent months.

 

 

The criteria for a successful to-do list race is simple: 

• Competitive and Motivated Friends: This type of race needs a community of like-minded individuals. Motivated, encouraging people who are going to push you forward. As seniors, we all are working with similar responsibilities and it is critical that we push each other. 

• Lists of similar extensivity: I’m not sure if extensivity is the word I’m looking for here, but each person’s lists must be of similar difficulty. This doesn’t necessarily mean of similar length, but similar timeframes and complexity to the assignments. For example, if I’m doing my Online PE homework, which comes out to be 4 different tasks on my to-do list while my friend is completing one essay for a school that they are applying to, that doesn’t mean that I am putting on more work than they are because of the difficulty and complexity of both of our tasks. 

• Reward! Everyone has been working very hard to get everything done. Our rewards so far have consisted of a trip to sephora after the library, dairy queen, and starbucks the next morning before school. 

 

Overall, a to-do list is so much more than just a list of tasks. Don’t underestimate the power of them, and I hope that you guys consider giving this race a try to increase your productivity. 

 

As I sat in class during reading time on the big bean bag chair in the corner of the classroom, I couldn’t help but peer over at my friends to see what page they were on. I was a competitive person, so, when I’d look over and see them on page 35, I would be demotivated by my measly 20 pages I had gone through. 

I was never a big reader. Nothing really interested me and truly made me want to keep reading, unless I had to for school or by my parents. My parents never trusted that I truly read a book, and so they would make me tell them the premise after I had claimed I finished reading. It wasn’t until third grade that I truly realized what reading had to offer. 

During our reading time in class, I picked up The Land of Stories, a book that looked massive compared to anything I had read before. My friends had read it and had really enjoyed it, so I figured I’d give it a try. As I flipped through the pages, the font seemed big, which was always enticing for me, but still it seemed like a daunting task. My competitive nature pushed me to read it anyways, and as soon as I started reading, I was immersed in the characters. The story was based on classic fairy tales that I had already read or heard of before: The Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Goldilocks to name a few. Each fairy tale had a twist, for example Cinderella was a mother and Goldilocks was a wanted fugitive. These twists intrigued me and really tied me to the story. Before I knew it, I had read 50 pages, more pages than I had ever read in one sitting. 

I always avoided reading because I thought I wasn’t good at it. I thought I was too slow, and hence, not a good reader. But as I sat there and read 50 pages of the Land of Stories, I realized that it wasn’t the act of reading I didn’t like, it was the fact that none of the stories I read I could relate to or connect to in some way. fairy tales didn’t relate to my life, rather I was already familiar with them, I was interested to see how the author chose to twist them. From then on, I picked up books with concepts, characters, or storylines I was familiar with or could connect to. As a result, realistic fiction became a large part of my reading career. Books centered around teenage girls, immigrant culture, sports, or something else that I can truly relate back to my life were books I was most drawn towards. 

I believe that every story has some sort of lesson attached. For me, if I can relate the story back to my own life, I can relate a lesson back to my own life. It’s almost as if I can put myself in their shoes and live their life, learn their lessons with them. Exploring the realm of realistic fiction has given me the opportunity to learn more about myself in process, something that I don’t see fantasy or science fiction doing for me. Though it may seem ironic that fantasy is where my journey started, it wasn’t the imagination that sparked my interest, but rather the facts. The stories I already knew were portrayed in a completely different manner; to have familiarity and safety within my reading, but still having the opportunity to hear new stories and learn new lessons, that is where I find the most comfort and enjoyment.