To put it lightly, the Fall 2019 semester was a lot.
I joined new clubs, met so many new people and moved up in a lot of positions I already carried. I had a lot of success and I can honestly say I tried my hardest and had an overall really great semester.
However, my successes did not come easily. I’m not going to lie, I was kind of unprepared for just exactly how busy the semester would be with all of the new clubs and responsibilities I held. On top of that, I do happen to be the queen of procrastination.
While that was a title I held with pride starting in high school through my first year of college, after taking a good hard look at my habits I’m sick of constantly feeling like I’m running around and having to sacrifice my free-time or skip class in order to catch up on work for other classes.
Being a hot mess isn’t a good look, and I plan on actually trying to be a responsible almost-adult in 2020 and manage my time and responsibilities in a realistic way. That being said, it all has to do with baby steps and I pin-pointed five habits that I’m trying to implement into my life in order to make myself less stressed and more #blessed.
- Buying a planner I’ll actually use (and actually keeping it updated).
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I’ve always said I’m a planner person, but that’s usually turns out to be false after work starts piling up and I just kind of rely on my mental hierarchy to remind me what to do when. Needless to say, this is a bad habit. However, I’m determined to make it work. I’m a visual person, and I invested in a planner that has enough bells and whistles to be more than a fancy notebook but isn’t filled with a bunch of fluff that no one actually needs. The one I got is from the Create and Cultivate collection from Dayplanner. It has spaces for to-do lists, weekly and monthly calendars, and a space to reflect on the month and plan goals for the months ahead. Pray for me (and my planner).
- Using my Google Calendar to organize commitments (ahead of time).
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I love Google Calendar. If you don’t use it, you should. I have my work calendar, school calendar and club calendars all loaded onto one account and it’s accessible from every device I could ever want it on. However, I’m very guilty of not actually using it or referencing it when figuring out my schedule. That’s bad, and I already have my schedules updated for the Spring semester so that I (hopefully) won’t be caught off guard by any meetings or events.
- Being realistic about how much sleep I actually need.
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During finals week last semester, I quite literally got a total of six hours of sleep in the span of three days. Yes, I had a breakdown over it. No, I will never let that happen again. I used to be pretty good about putting my books down after a certain time, but this past semester I started letting my schoolwork get in the way of the fact that my body desperately needed sleep. The new rule is, if I don’t understand it by midnight, I’ll probably never understand it without help from a professor or a classmate who has a much healthier sleep schedule than I do, so it’s better for everyone if I just get some sleep.
- Giving myself time for self-care of all varieties.
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I love face masks. A good cup of coffee can change my mood in less than a second. I have the best friends and support systems in the entire world. I want more time to cherish these things, and so I’m giving myself that time this semester. Anything can be a mental reset, and I always underestimate how good I feel after just spending time with friends or doing a face mask and taking the time to just sit and drink my coffee in the morning.
- Listening to my body and responding to what it’s saying.
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The older I get, the more I realize my body just simply does not like it when I do certain things. It’s hard to admit it, but honestly, projects can wait until tomorrow and it feels much better to actually get sleep and eat a good meal instead of skipping lunch so I can make office hours or staying up until 3 a.m. studying. I have a lot of plans for the future and I’m realizing if I want to feel good amidst my successes, I have to try and make my body happy.
As I said, this past semester wasn’t bad, I was just extremely unprepared for how busy I’d actually be. Luckily I have people in my life that helped carry me through that, but one day I may not be able to just send an email to a professor because I’m “sick” and have to stay at home and rest in order to catch up on work.