Midterms have wrapped up, and we’re finally in the home stretch of the semester! One of the hardest parts of the spring semester is mustering up the motivation to make it to the end. Listed below are four tips to help keep you on track!
1. Use your planner, and if you don’t have one, buy into it! I totally did not expect myself to be the girl who frantically consults her calendar on an hourly basis. Now that it has happened, I’d never like to go back! It is so much easier to keep up with my academic, personal, and social life when it is all conveniently placed in one agenda.
2. Scheduling/Time-blocking! Instead of scrambling to work on multiple assignments at once, it’s so much easier to allot time for individual assignments. Make sure you plan ahead how much time each assignment might take. We all know that assignments can take anywhere from a half-hour to many hours depending on the difficulty, so accounting for this in your planning with help a lot. One way to do this is by making a checklist with all the different parts of the assignment. This will make your studying more efficient—reducing your stress and giving you more free time to do things you enjoy!
3. Use your highlighters! One of the greatest life hacks I have come across is to use highlighters! Before coming to college, I never really saw the point of them. I wanted to highlight everything or nothing and just thought it was a waste of time. I completely get it now. When you’re studying for one of many exams and need a refresher on all the readings you’ve had that semester, studying a highlighted text really helps. It allows you to get through your readings more quickly, as you already have all the important information marked. Scientific research even supports the claim that using color improves memory performance!
4. Look good, feel good. I found during my freshman year that when I came to class really dressed up, it was because I had a busy day. It seems like tests and exams are less scary when I am wearing a nice dress and lipstick. There’s nothing wrong with feeling extra confident, especially on a day when you’ve got a lot on your plate. This is also the easiest hack to try—I can guarantee you’ll feel better when using this academic war-paint.
So there are four tips to help you stay organized as the semester comes to a close. Keeping these in mind, you will be on your way to finishing out the semester with the grades and achievements you’ve hoped for. Good luck!