When I went back home for winter break, I made a commitment to myself that I would turn my life around and finally get organized. Like many, when I got back to school, I quickly felt myself falling back into my old habits and all the plans I had made for myself seemed too hard, too time-consuming or just too much overall. In the past couple of weeks, I have found some ways to avoid or get rid of the famous slump.
The first thing that I started doing is writing out my tasks for a particular day on the night before. This may seem overly simple (and it is), but laying out your tasks in advance really helps an unorganized mind get itself together. Though planners are cute, it’s not really necessary to organize your life like Pinterest makes it seem. I have always had trouble actually keeping up with a planner and I realized that there are many different ways to maintain a planner (bullet journaling, passion planning, productivity planning, etc.), and I was just doing it in a way that was not beneficial to me. Honestly, an app or an easily accessible piece of paper is a perfectly valid way to track your tasks for the day (even though I prefer physically writing down my tasks). Don’t even get me started on how satisfying it is to cross tasks off the list and see all that you’ve accomplished within the day.
The second thing I started doing was making more of an effort to keep my living space clean. If you’re anything like me, you’d rather curl up in bed and pretend that messes don’t exist than spend a day cleaning. Since I have been back at school, I’ve realized how beneficial it is to live in a clean room. I hate cleaning, but I never realized how cluttered my mind was in a dirty room until I started cleaning regularly, and now I feel like I can actually breathe. Now, I’m not saying that you have to become a clean freak overnight, but deep cleaning my room at least once a week has had a huge effect on my motivation and mental health.
The last thing that I have started doing to get over my slump is to take better care of myself physically. First semester, I could easily get by on 1.5 meals a day and four to five hours of sleep. I realized these things were not healthy, but I didn’t really think it mattered as much as it does. I was so wrong. I realized that you can’t really excel if you don’t take care of yourself physically. The worse you feel, the less motivation you are going to have to get your work done or do things that matter to you. If all else fails, just imagine how amazing your spring break trip is going to be, and imagine how much better it will be if you can go knowing that when you get back to school you’re going to ‘A’ce (or at least “B’ce”) your midterms.
Photo Credits: cover photo by Chelsea Schmidt, 1