1. You've mastered the art of multi-tasking. If you can kill two birds with one stone, you do. You eat breakfast on the bus to school, finish your Spanish homework in homeroom, and turn cheer practice into social hour by chatting with friends during warm-ups.
2. Coffee is bae. It might have been an acquired taste at first, but now you feel like a foggy zombie without it.
3. Spencer Hastings, Blair Waldorf, and Hermione Granger are your spirit animals. You'd kill for Hermione's Time-Turner.
4. You hate when your busy schedule keeps you away from your friends. You just have a thing you can't get out of! You reassure them constantly that you love them and are NOT avoiding their invites on purpose. :(
5. You're hyper-organized. Not gonna lie, your ninja-level organizational skills took awhile to perfect. But over time, through a patented mix of phone alarms, iCal notifications, and color-coordinated to-do lists, you've gotten your life under control.
6. You have a love/hate relationship with lists. So fun to make! So satisfying to actually check things off! So scary to see all the things you have left to do! That's why "Make a to-do list" is always the first item you write down, because it makes your list look longer and it's a no-brainer to cross off first.
7. Study hall is a lifesaver. Half the reason you can cram in so many extracurriculars and still have time for after-school hang-outs with your friends is because you can rely on that extra hour during school to power through your homework. And if you're really slammed, you know you can always go to the libes during lunch.
8. You shudder to think what would happen if you lost your assignment notebook. Let's just say you wouldn't recover. You have every hour of your life planned to a T in there, not to mention the hours you've spent color-coding it to perfection. You could kiss that semester's grades (not to mention your sanity) goodbye.
9. You don't have to worry about beefing up your college apps. The stress of running from one activity to the next is tough, but you know college admissions officers will be impressed by your long list of extracurriculars.
10. Your friends always ask you for study tips. You are the Grand Master of Flash Cards, the Queen of Note-Taking Techniques, and the First Lady of Study Guides. You. Got. This.
11. You miss sleeping in on the weekends. While your friends sleep until 11 a.m. most Saturdays, thanks to early-morning SAT practice tests, soccer practice, volunteering, and working on your vlog, you're lucky if you get to snooze until 7 a.m..
12. Your "vacations" are never really vacations. You crammed all of driver's ed into spring break, and your summer vacation will be spent earning money at the sandwich shop so you can go on the French Club's annual trip to Paris this year.
13. Sometimes you have a hard time relaxing. You to your brain: SHUT UP AND BINGE-WATCH NETFLIX.
14. Your parents are SO proud of you, but they're also slightly worried about you. They alternate between bragging about you on Facebook and begging you to get more sleep.
15. You have a tendency to overwork yourself. When you stretch yourself too thin, you end up exhausted, anxious, and sometimes even sick. But sometimes it just feels like there's so much to do and so much more you can be doing.
16. OK, fine, you're a little uptight sometimes. Not that there's anything wrong with that! That's how you get sh*t done.
17. You know you can do literally anything. If you can make it through high school while juggling classes, a social life, student council, your a cappella group, your after-school job, college applications, becoming president, or a fashion designer, or starting your own mega-successful company will be a total breeze.
Hannah Orenstein is the author of several novels, including Meant to Be Mine (out June 7, 2022), Head Over Heels, Love at First Like, and Playing with Matches. She's also the Deputy Editor of Dating at Elite Daily. She lives in Brooklyn.
