Most of us have multiple identities. We’re students, we’re employees, we’re interns, we’re organization members, the list goes on and on.
Our schedules are jam-packed every single day. We’re constantly running around frantically from a meeting to another, going to bed late and having to wake up super early the next day. Life gets tough and there are times we feel like everything’s falling apart.
But don’t worry! There are different ways to make your hectic schedule less unbearable and reduce some stress. Even though they’re small things and seem like they won’t make a huge difference in your life, they are enough to make your days better.
1. Fill your water bottle the night before.
This sounds so insignificant and pointless to do. Filling up your water bottle is such a simple and quick task you would think it’s perfectly normal and fine to just do it in the morning right before you leave for class or work. But imagine this, you woke up later than you were supposed to (probably happens a lot), you’re running late and you are getting ready and scrambling around your room to get everything together and leave. Would you want to spend the time filling up your water bottle in that situation? Probably not. You would thank past self next time you running late in the morning and not having to wait to have your water bottle filled up.
2. Pack all your things for the next day before bed.
As I said, it’s very common that we wake up later than we wanted to in the morning (and it’s perfectly normal, nothing to be ashamed or frustrated about). It’ll be very helpful if you have everything ready to go before you snuggle under your cozy blankets for the night. Have everything you need in your bookbag or work bag. Don’t forget to bring some snacks if you know you’ll be hungry between meals.
3. Pick your outfit the night before.
This will also save you so much time and stress in the morning. You don’t want to be running late and stressed but struggling and couldn’t pick an outfit out in 3 seconds. And you certainly wouldn’t want to throw on something random and regret it afterward. Before going to bed, think about the activities you’re going to do the next day – if there’s going to be a lot of walking, if you have to look presentable and/or professional, or if it’s going to be freezing tomorrow…etc and plan accordingly!
If you’re too tired or lazy to take your clothes out, you should at the very least THINK about what you want to wear tomorrow so you don’t have to waste those precious time in the morning debating on what to wear.
Related: What To Do When You Can’t Get Stuff Done
4. Put everything on Google Calendar – EVERY SINGLE DETAIL.
If you don’t have the habit of using a digital calendar yet, definitely consider starting! Some people like to rely on their physical planner for schedules and some just solely rely on their brains. While those systems might be working for you right now, you’d be amazed at how much easier and less stressful life could be with Google Calendar. It is less time consuming than writing down your schedule on a physical planner, plus, there’s the recurring feature (meeting/class happening every week/every other week…etc) that planner schedulers don’t get the enjoy.
It is also a lot more convenient considering that you’d likely be walking to places and in a hurry a lot with your busy schedule. Sometimes you have so much going on, you can’t remember what you have going on for the rest of the day. In this case, you can usually just open your Google Calendar app on your phone while you walk to have a better picture of how the rest of your day is going to look like. With a physical planner, it is a little harder and inconvenient to just look at your schedule anytime and anywhere.
(Disclaimer: I am not anti-planner. I love planners, in fact, I spent $50+ on my planner this year. But I wanted to show the benefits of using a digital schedule over a physical one. And for your planner, you could be focusing more on to-do lists, deadlines and other notes and reminders.)
5. To-do lists and planners!
Now that brings me to my next point. When in doubt/stress, write everything down. We often get stressed over things because there’s so much to do. This gets overwhelming because everything is in your head and you don’t know where to start.
By writing down to-do lists, you get to visually see the chaos in your brain and it is easier to start and make sense of everything on paper. With your to-do lists, make sure you be as specific as you can be and put little tasks instead of big ones. For example, on your to-do list, don’t just write “Write research paper” or “Work on project”. You should write down small tasks such as “do research on XX”, “Outline on paper”, “Outline for presentation”, “Write body content”, “Write introduction and conclusion”, “Create PowerPoint”, “Practice and time presentation”… etc. This way, you get a better sense of what exactly you have to do and this makes it less overwhelming for you.
Make sure you utilize your planner strategically and mark down all the deadlines and reminders. This allows you to better visualize how busy you are going to be during different times and that way you know when best to schedule things!
Related: How to Make the Most of Your Planner This Semester
Collegiettes, we’re almost to the middle of the semester (I think?), but it’s not too late to start developing these habits and make your life easier and less stressful!