This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Notre Dame chapter.
I think it’s funny that our first mini-break (singular day off) nearly coincides with the one year anniversary of the country going into lockdown. This one day off encapsulates the work-life imbalance that we normalized during the past year. The day is supposed to be free from school, but I’m sure most of us spent at least some time doing homework or answering emails or studying for an exam. In the face of the pandemic, we made online communication so efficient that days off just don’t exist anymore. Snow days and sick days are obsolete. We are accessible 24/7, whether that is through zoom meetings, email chains, or group-me messages. As a Gen Z student, I love my technology as much as the next person, but there need to be boundaries in place. The distinction between school and personal life is so blurred that I feel like I am always working, and we as students are expected to give up more and more of our free time. Clearly, nothing is going to give on its own, so the responsibility falls on us to reclaim a bit of work-life balance which is something I am really trying to work on lately. (I say this as I write this article on my day off, but it’s all a work in progress.)
Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels
It all starts when I wake up. I developed the bad habit of checking my phone right after my alarm goes off, and the morning line-up is always: texts, then snapchat, then email. Probably every time I pick up my phone throughout the rest of the day I do a quick check of my email. It’s so unnecessary, and most of the time I either have no new messages or just stress myself out thinking of a response. The thing is, nobody expects me to respond immediately, but I trained myself to be completely accessible at all times. Lately, I’ve been trying to limit checking my email to two or three times a day. I still get back to everyone when they need me while maintaining my peace of mind.
Photo by Benjamin Sow from Unsplash
So much of putting these boundaries in place requires being conscious of my daily routine, and as a result, I realized that I am almost always multitasking. When I make my dinner at night I almost always have my laptop open to some lab report or reading that I can glance at in between tasks. (Aside from aggressively multi-tasking, this is probably also a fire hazard, so I don’t recommend). I finally had to draw the line when my roommates and I watched an entire episode of “The Bachelor,” and I had to rewatch the entire thing the next day because I was so glued to my computer. I clearly wasn’t present spending time with my friends, but I also didn’t accomplish much during that two hours because I wasn’t fully focused. I’ve found study methods like the “Pomodoro Technique” really helpful in making the most of the time I spend doing school work, but ultimately, I’m more efficient in the time I do spend doing school work if I also am fully present in the time I take to relax. This is obviously really difficult as a college student when school is our life, but I do think that it’s possible to put some of those boundaries back in place that we lost to accommodate the pandemic. Although we don’t get breaks like we used to, by being intentional about our personal time, we can minimize the crash and burn a bit.
Caroline is a South Bend native and junior Biology and English major on the Pre-Med track. When she is not in class or lab, you can find her heading to spin class, listening to True Crime podcasts, or having The Bachelor viewing parties with her roommates. She loves writing and can’t wait to share some of her thoughts with you all!
