The Cycle
Work, Class, Bed and Repeat. We are at the point in the semester when college can start to lose its shine and start feeling cyclic. You begin to feel like you have absolutely no time for yourself, constantly trying to keep up with homework and preparing for tests.
That is, until you look at your screen time and suddenly see a 6 hours a day average staring back at you. Trust me, you are not alone. After mentally exhausting myself trying to memorize material for 3 different psych courses, I often feel like a little screen time is a necessary reward. But it’s never just a little screen time. You never plan to start doom-scrolling. You tell yourself you are going to take a 30 minute break from homework and suddenly 4 hours have gone by and you can’t remember a single thing you have consumed.Â
I spent the entirety of my freshman year falling into this cycle. I would get home from class and would not leave the dorm until it was dinner time. Somehow, it felt impossible to do anything else with my time. I felt busy despite the lack of results and it was sad. I felt like I wasn’t getting “the college experience” and for the life of me I could not find a way to fix it.
My Solution
Coming into fall semester, I decided to make it my mission to fix this with a simple plan. I would do something everyday. At first glance, this sounds incredibly silly. We are all busy college students, most of us having classes every weekday and a large homework pile with them. There is rarely a day where there is nothing on my to do list. My challenge was to do one additional thing for myself, beyond the necessities. I took out work, school and the gym and asked myself what else I could do to fill my time.
At first, I honestly found it more difficult than I expected. Sure, I had a couple RSO’s to fill my time but they were only twice a week. I started looking elsewhere, searching events near me online and walking around aimlessly. It ended up being more beneficial then I ever imagined. Since starting, I have gone to an apple orchard, the night market and joined a play. On days where I have nothing scheduled, I plan to run errands with friends, movie nights or a study date with myself at a new coffee shop.
The point of this goal is not to force myself to do grand adventures everyday, because none of us have that kind of time. My goal was to avoid entering the cycle of endless scrolling and instead trying something new or to do the activities already required of me in a fun new way. So, if you feel yourself struggling with engaging in the world around you because of your phone, I encourage you to join me. Use the time you have and spend it doing something for yourself.
