Depending on what major you are in or how many jobs you currently have, it can be challenging to find time for yourself and your friends. It seems this semester almost everyone I know has been stuck in their rooms until Saturday morning cramming work in. When I came to college, I was a big procrastinator. I thought it was going to be just as easy as high school and nothing would be assigned to me over the weekends. Dang… was I wrong! I soon started to fall behind, and my grades began to slip. Spring semester of freshman year I tried a new system. This “new system” gave me the time to start my fun weekends late in the afternoon on Fridays or early in the morning on Sundays. Here is the system I use to balance out my social and academic life.
- Work ahead
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Something I notice a ton of people do is start on assignments that are due the next day. That is a no-go for sure. If you can understand the material and work through an assignment, try to start on the homework sooner. This way you aren’t trying to rush through the assignment and can take your time instead of worrying whether or not you will finish it on time.
- Start on the easy stuff first
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Starting on things that will only take you 20 minutes vs. 1 hour will help significantly. You’ll get things done quicker and have more time to work on the harder stuff at the end.
- Time yourself
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Take breaks in between each assignment. For every 30 minutes you work on homework, take at least a seven-minute break. This helps so you aren’t stressing your brain out and you give it time to breathe and take a small mental break.
- Start work on Sunday mornings
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Once again, don’t start on assignments the day before they are due. One way to avoid this is to start and finish as much as you can on Sundays. If you have any online asynchronous classes, what I recommend is to dedicate those classes to Sundays and do all work for those classes that day if you can. It will help you get those classes out of the way for the week and let you focus more on your in-person classes.
You can easily find ways to balance a social and academic life. It may seem hard right now, but I promise you can do it if you follow any of the steps I listed above. The most important thing is that you don’t stress yourself out and give yourself time to step away from your computer and just breathe. Happy studying!