Most students, regardless of their school age, have an interest in activities outside of the classroom.  The interest in extracurricular activities begins as early as preschool age.   You may have become interested in extracurricular activities at a young age.  As you begin to get older and the need for you to study becomes greater, there is a chance that these activities can interfere with study habits.  No doubt, when you first start getting involved in activities outside of class, you didn’t realize how much the commitment would affect your ability to maintain great study habits.  Soon after you made the commitment, however, you begin to figure out just how time-consuming extracurricular activities can be.

The biggest reason that extracurricular activities interfere with study habits is that they leave you with no extra time for studying.  When extracurricular activities are taken on, they require a great deal of after school time, in some more than three or four hours a day.  Once the extracurricular activities are completed, there is little to no time left to get in any studying, or any other activities for that matter.  There are some activities that take up more time than others.  Some activities require extra after school time every day of the week, while others only require after school time once or twice a week.  Those activities that are more time demanding are those that affect study habits the most.

In the off chance that there is some time left over after extracurricular activities, you might be left with little to no energy for studying.  This is especially true of sports.  After running around a field all afternoon, the last thing that most athletes want to think about it cracking open a book and studying for hours.  Extracurricular activities can drain you of all the energy that you might have for studying.  In the case that you can muster up enough energy to open a book and attempt to study, you might find that you don’t have any motivation for studying.  After a long day of strenuous activity most people can only think of getting into the bed leaving the studying for another day.

Extracurricular activities can take the focus away from studying.   If you are playing a big game tomorrow and you have an algebra test as well, which one are you going to be thinking about the most?  More than likely, you will be thinking about the game.  Even though you tell yourself that you are going to focus on studying for your test, it can be hard to concentrate when you have something else on your mind.  The activity doesn’t have to be a big one.  You might be distracted about any number of things pertaining to your extracurricular activity.  For example, you might be reflecting about your performance in practice and how you can improve.  In this way, extracurricular activities serve as a distraction from developing great study habits.

Some extracurricular activities receive a large amount of attention.  Football and basketball are two extracurricular activities that many people, even outside the team, are focused on.  When these activities receive more attention and praise than class work, it leads some to neglect studying.  Having good study habits seems pointless when everyone is paying more attention to your performance on the court, the fields, or another playing arena.  This, too, has a negative impact on study habits and is perhaps the hardest of all the interferences to overcome.

Many students have a hard tome studying even before taking on an extracurricular activity.  Once these students find that they can excel in an activity it takes the focus while studying takes a backseat. These students might wonder why they should study if they are good at their extracurricular activities.  It is easy to let activities take the place of studying when studying isn’t something that comes naturally.

There are many reasons that extracurricular activities interfere with study habits.  Usually the reason is because there isn’t enough time after school and activities to focus on studying.  There are other reasons for the interference as well.   Students can lose focus and become unmotivated to study.  In addition, when others focus on the performance of a particular activity more than class work, it leaves students believing that class work isn’t worth it.  Knowing the reasons that activities can interfere with study habits helps you to figure out a way to continue the activity and someone include studying as well.

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