When I started college, I realized that I had a lot of things in my life that were changing, including the amount of free time I had. I also lost my motivation for physical activity since I no longer have my team sports. This created a lot of issues for me that I’d never really noticed, and others were getting worse.
With all of this going on, my freshman year was really difficult for me. Like any girl who runs on pure determination (and coffee) for her dreams, I spent as much time as I could trying to find ways back into the things that kept me going.
Here are some of the things I’ve found that kept me motivated, helped me stay organized, and just generally changed my life starting college.
- Google Calendar
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Now, I understand I’m not the only person singing the praises of Google Calendar and other adjacent planning apps. In high school, I never really needed one. However, since starting college, I found that I desperately need to organize my classes and class times. In my first semester, I forgot deadlines a lot, and it really impacted my grades.
Google Calendar helped me so much with this. I get to see my class schedule for the day, my club obligations, work schedule, and homework for the whole semester at once. This is a big lifesaver in planning other meetings, time to clean my apartment, and even when I can go home to see my family and friends.
My favorite is having the F1 race and practice calendar saved to it, so I can plan my priorities ahead of races so I can watch all of them. Integrating calendars from other platforms is so easy, and it’s seriously my holy grail.
- Getting Ready Playlists
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This one sounds a little weirder than you may think, but once again, I’m horrible at time management. I use the excuse of being on “Puerto Rican time” very often (or I blame the horrific campus parking). During freshman year, I was enrolled in a coaching and mentorship plan where I voiced the concern of having no concept of time to my coach, and as a result, she gave me the best idea.
Every time I get ready, I put music on. Not necessarily a specific playlist all the time, but just music in general. It gets me motivated to get out of my apartment, makes getting ready a little more fun, and it’s a timer for how fast you’re moving. I won’t lie; I was a little mad I didn’t think of it myself.
Think about it: you know your favorite songs, and you know about how long they are. Everyone has a “getting ready to go out” playlist or set of songs. Just do that every time you have to do something with a time limit. I have shower timer playlists, skincare playlists, and driving to class playlists. Anything you can think of you can make a timer playlist for. It’s a gamechanger.
My timer playlists are private and, unfortunately, won’t be made public, because not everyone needs to know what songs I’m using my hairbrush as a microphone for. However, I’m willing to share my driving playlist, which is my timer playlist for how close I am to home while driving to Tampa.
- Vitamin Supplements
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Now this one is a bit unconventional. I learned at 18 that I suffer from chronic migraines, which are the result of a hormone imbalance in my body. I’ve struggled for so long to manage them with medication, diets, and working out, hoping something would work with no success, until my mom gave me one last suggestion.
My mom told me that when she was younger, she had the same problem until she started taking prenatal vitamins. Her migraines became less frequent, and eventually she rarely got them. I was extremely skeptical, but after a month of taking them, I’ve noticed fewer migraines. I’m not saying they’re perfect, but after doing some research, I think the reason they help me so much is the increased iron content.
I was also found to be anemic when I was in middle school, and have been taking iron and vitamins daily since I was 13 to try to manage it. Prenatal vitamins are like an all-in-one for me. While they’ve worked in my experience, there are some risks associated with taking them while not pregnant. If you do want to try it yourself, please contact your doctor first! All bodies react differently to supplements, and what works for me might not work for you.
Another supplement that I’ve taken that helps is ashwagandha. I started taking this a little before the prenatal vitamins. I take it at night before bed, and since starting it, I’ve had more consistent sleep and better focus when waking up in the morning. While they’ve been great for me, I do give the same warning for these because there’s no long-term research on them.
- Drinking Water
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This is self-explanatory, I know, but you’d be surprised how many people I know don’t drink water daily. I was one of those people until recently. Even my friends who drink water typically don’t drink enough.
I drink about 40 ounces a day, which has made me feel more awake recently. Everyone’s water intake needs are different and are based on so many factors, but if you don’t have time to go to a physician to determine how much you should have, there are a lot of different ways to figure it out. It’s always okay to adjust to what’s most realistic for you. It’s better than your blood type being Dr. Pepper like mine probably is at this point.
Of course, not everything that works for me will work for everyone else, but if you want to try and find things to make you feel more productive or healthier, there are so many options out there that are great starting points. There’s no need to dive headfirst into being a gym girly if you don’t know where to start. You can start on the small things like vitamins and food, or even just changing your schedule around a little. The options are yours; you just have to want to do it.
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