So, we’ve finally made it to the end of fall semester. Although I’m sure we all want to be excited for our month-long break and the holiday season coming up, we have one thing standing in our way — finals.
Finals week and the weeks leading up to it tend to be the most stressful time of the semester for college students. No matter how prepared a person is or how well a student is able to manage their time, it always seems like there are a million deadlines to worry about.
This becomes incredibly overwhelming, and a lot of people manage this by allocating all their time to studying and working on their projects and papers. Although this works, it can be incredibly miserable to get through.
I have gone that route in the past and have dedicated the last few weeks of a semester to getting all my work done successfully. Unfortunately, I felt downright stressed and very unhappy while doing so.
It is because of this that I decided to try something different this year. And not just during finals week, but throughout the whole semester too.
In order to avoid the awful feelings of burnout and hopelessness on my busiest weeks, I made sure to plan at least one thing each day that I found enjoyable.
Now, these “things” weren’t anything daunting or hard to plan. They often were simple things, like watching a movie with my roommates or grabbing lunch with a friend.
Making sure I had little things to look forward to each day helped me feel more so like my entire life didn’t revolve around my schoolwork. Although this simple exercise didn’t lessen the amount of work I had to do in any way, it reminded me that there is more to life than school (even if it doesn’t always feel that way).
You may be reading this and thinking that you won’t possibly have time to manage this practice during the upcoming weeks, as you just have too many deadlines and exams to worry about.
Well, I want to assure you that you can do it too. And it can absolutely make a difference in your mindset in a positive way.
No matter how busy you are, you owe it to yourself to set aside even just 30 minutes to do something you enjoy. Whether that’s video calling a friend from home, reading a chapter of a book or even taking a relaxing bath! Anything you can do to get your mind off your other obligations for a little can be incredibly helpful.
In order to stay on top of this, you can even try writing these activities in your calendar the week before so you are able to actively able to look forward to them.
This practice is something that has worked really well for me, and has reminded me that college is just as much about being happy and having fun as it is about being academically successful.
And if you find yourself dreading these final weeks of the semester, or any other week in your life that is incredibly busy, try out this advice for yourself.
It is always important to make sure we are staying on top of our mental health and not getting too buried by the stress of schoolwork. Take care of yourself and your wellbeing first, and hopefully this practice will help you do so.