POV: It’s the middle of the semester and most of us are swarmed and overloaded with assessments, projects, and deadlines. Pulling all-nighters, binge-watching lectures instead of your favorite shows, doing last minute assignments, surviving on energy drinks and junk food, but worst of all, experiencing (*dramatic music please*) burnout i.e. extreme exhaustion, depression, lack of motivation, and thinability to attend to necessary tasks and meet deadlines. BUT, you’re in luck. I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve that might help.
- History repeats itself
-
Quite frankly, I’ve been experiencing anxiety during the midterm season too and one thing that seems to help is reminding myself I got through it before and thus, I’ll be able to do it again. There were times where things went haywire in the past but you, yes YOU managed to pull through. You need to have that same belief within you and this’ll all be over before you even know it.
- The best way to do it is to do it
-
If you’re a procrastinator you’ve probably heard all sorts of tips like setting schedules and rewarding yourself. While those do work, sometimes it just boils down to sitting down and doing the actual work. Promise yourself to do 3 minutes of that task you’ve been putting off. That’s it. You can literally time yourself if you wish. If you feel like doing it after 3 minutes, then continue. The logic behind this technique is usually it takes 2-3 minutes for someone to get into the flow of work. By the time the 3 minute mark is over, you’re already in flow and ready to do the work. The challenging part of this is actually getting started. So clear your desk, put your head down and get to it.
- When in doubt, tell it out
-
If you’re still struggling with the procrastination issue, I would recommend making a daily to-do list of reasonable tasks. Keyword: reasonable. Once you’ve done this, you can tell someone about your goals for the day. The point of this is eventually they’ll ask you if you actually ended up doing the said work. That pressure of being embarrassed will most likely be sufficient motivation to get you going.
- Procrastinate by doing something else
-
Okay. So, assuming what I just said made no difference and nothing in the world is gonna make you start that thing you’re dreading unless it’s the very last day. That’s fine. But you can procrastinate on it by doing something else pending. This could be something less daunting. At the end of the day, yeah you didn’t achieve the dreadful scary task, BUT you still did something productive which ends up making you feel less guilty.
- Speed up lectures
-
If you have recorded lectures (which most of us do in a time like this), then save time by watching them at 1.25x or 1.5x speed, maybe even 2x if you’re bold. Personally, I find 1.5x speed is the sweet spot for me. But make sure you start off slow and then pick whatever speed you’re comfortable with. Remember, you need to be learning too.
- Mark important things
-
Say you’re studying for an upcoming test and it seems like you won’t have enough time to come back and practice all of the solved in class examples. In a situation like this, simply highlight trickier questions that you think are important for you to go over before the test. Alternatively, you could jot the lecture and slide numbers in a notepad for quicker access.
- Merge all the slides
-
If you have a slide heavy course, merging all the slides into a single pdf document could really save you some time in an exam. Now that many exams are open-book, this is a smart way for you to be able to search for keywords and get that info instantly (Good ol’ Ctrl + F).
- Stay on top
-
Last but certainly not the least, make sure you’re up to date with all course announcements and deadlines. I would suggest marking everything on a calendar or planner so you don’t miss anything and setting a designated time every day to check all important course announcements. You could also mark school related emails as priority emails.
For the sake of repetition, I didn’t include extremely obvious tips like getting at least 6 hours of sleep, staying hydrated, and trying to eat a healthy diet. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t absolutely necessary and should be ignored. In fact, they need to be done in order for ANY of the above to work. With that being said, good luck to everyone stuck in this mid-semester madness. This too shall pass and so shall you. I believe in you!