It’s that time of the year again: daylight savings, post-Halloweekend, the final weeks before the holidays—and a million assignments and deadlines approaching as the end of the semester nears. Essays, projects, and presentations on top of work, clubs, and attempting to maintain a social life can be mentally and physically exhausting, leading me to be even less productive. Getting out of this slump can be difficult, but here are a few tips that have helped me get into a better headspace.
- Get out of bed.
When I have any single moment of spare time where I could be doing something useful, I typically find myself in bed, binge-watching YouTube videos. I am hardly ever able to get work done when I associate relaxation with my bed. You need to get out of bed in the morning, sit at the kitchen table, a desk, a bench outside, anywhere else, and get stuff done. This will help you finish work ahead of time and quicker.
- Have something to look forward to each day.
Whether this is treating yourself to an iced coffee, getting ice cream after class, or making your favorite meal when you get home. Doing this has helped me through my days that feel so repetitive and work-oriented. After checking something productive off my list, rewarding myself afterward makes it feel more worthwhile.
- Get an adequate amount of sleep.
Stop staying up all night doing work, watching TikTok, or streaming television shows all the time. It is never worth taking away from your well-being, especially if you start to set aside time to do these things in your day. Staying up all night will only feed into your slump, making you feel sluggish and unproductive.
- Get organized.
If you have many assignments and obligations coming up, as most people do at this point in the semester, it will be worth it to organize your day with a planner or simply a checklist. This ensures that something will be done each day, at least creating progress, and will help you understand when things are due.
This semester has definitely been challenging. Readjusting to an in-person school lifestyle on top of life, in general, has caused an extreme stress level and workload. With the amount of things that have changed since coming back to campus, it can be easy to fall into the same unproductive routine. This is the home stretch of the semester, so let’s break from this cycle!