DR. WALLACE: Over the summer, I met an older guy who is attending college. He's 22 years old, and I'll be 18 in January. I'm heading into my senior year of high school and I'm both a cheerleader during football season and a pretty good girls softball player as well. This guy and I have hit it off in terms of conversations and a lunch or two, but I've held off for now formally dating him. He has asked me out to do things on weekend evenings, but I've told him I'm too busy for now, so he's accepted the decline with understanding thus far.

On the other hand, I had just started a fledgling relationship with a guy at our high school at the end of the last school year. However, I didn't see him at all over the summer since his family travels out west to visit their relatives and do camping, hiking and many other activities for a few months each summer. He has just come back into town, and of course he called me to ask me how my summer went.

Do you feel I should pursue my new opportunity with this college guy, or should I let that go and see if I can reconnect with the guy who attends my high school and will also be a senior this year? — A Girl With Options, via email

A GIRL WITH OPTIONS: Given your age, and the fact you'll have much more access to seeing your high school friend on a more regular basis, I would recommend that you concentrate your social efforts there.

Once you graduate high school and turn 18, you can look at other options in your life, especially if you're attending college somewhere. But in the meantime, who knows? Perhaps if a new relationship blossoms for you with your high school friend, you may not be interested in a year or two in anyone else.

THIS SCHOOL YEAR, I'D LIKE TO PLAN AHEAD

DR. WALLACE: I'll be a senior in high school this year, and I'm a guy who gets good grades even though I play on one of our school's athletic teams. However, in order to get good grades and complete all my studies correctly, I often have to study until the early hours of the morning. This cuts down on my sleep, and I do find myself feeling pretty tired most days.

I also have sports practice most afternoons, so between this, my studies and an active social life, I don't seem to have enough hours in the day. Do you have any suggestions on how I can find time to study so that I don't need to be up all night? — A Busy High School Senior, via email

A BUSY HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR: Your situation is not unusual for many high school students. We all have only 24 hours in a day to accomplish everything we would like to do, and this includes making a priority of getting a restful night's sleep.

The first thing I feel you should do is to keep a log of every 10-minute segment of your day from beginning to end. Track everything you were doing for a full week, and then go back and read it quite carefully.

I trust that you will find there are some periods of time that you're not getting the best and highest use of your time applied to your life. Do your best from there to cut down or cut out things you really don't need to be doing. Seek also to study in "microbursts" whenever you have 15 to 45 minutes of free time in between other activities. Keep your most important textbooks and study notes with you at all times so that you can access them whenever you have a gap in your schedule that can be applied to study time.

Finally, spend an hour or two one weekend afternoon researching time management strategies online. A few hours of studying this wonderful topic will surely also provide you some strategies that you can apply to your life that will help you further in your quest to keep your schedule on track.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at rwallace@thegreatestgift.com. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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