Reading week is a great time to catch up on assignments, take some time out, and get ready to hit the ground running again in November. But sometimes it can feel heavy, and the absence of a class timetable or consistent routine can make it challenging to stay motivated and productive.
As someone who organises pretty much everything, over the years I’ve learned a variety of methods that prove effective for managing numerous tasks. If you’re anything like me, and sometimes you become too locked in, reading week is a great time to establish a balanced routine which you can take into the rest of the semester and exam season ahead. To plan your week and make reading week work for you, let’s start from the beginning.
The Eisenhower Matrix
It’s very easy to end up working on the light and easy tasks because it can feel productive and, well… easier. This is where prioritising your tasks comes in, but even this can feel like a task in itself, from coming up with priority categories to decide what to tackle and when. At school, a teacher introduced me to the Eisenhower Matrix, and nearly ten years later, I still find it useful.
The Eisenhower Matrix allows you to group tasks by both priority and urgency, enabling you to decide whether to complete, schedule, delegate, or delete them. Do you have an assignment due after reading week? That’s important and urgent, so that is for the top of your to-do list. That inbox full of emails isn’t as crucial as your assignment, but will need dealing with, so you can set that aside for after your uni work. Any non-urgent, unimportant stuff is going to be deleted – this includes distractions (but not rest; we’ll come back to that later). It’s worth being mindful of how many tasks you are putting into your matrix, and that’s what we will look at next.
Know When You Work
We all work at different times, so my schedule might be very different to somebody else’s. Working out your best time to be productive can make a massive difference to when you work. Most people have heard of ‘night owls’ and ‘early birds’, but in reading one of Natasha Devon’s books, I learnt about the idea of ‘seagulls’ – those of us who work best in the middle of the day. As much as I want to, I can’t pull an all-nighter in deadline season, nor am I getting up at 5am to go to the gym and crack on with assignments. This makes me something of a ‘seagull’, where working in the middle of the day is best for me. This is all to say that just because everyone on TikTok is getting up at the crack of dawn to work, or is pulling a study marathon, doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to work for you too. Start planning your day on your timetable, and how you will find it most effective. Who knows, perhaps you are a ‘seagull’ worker too.
Set Realistic Targets
We’ve all been guilty at one point or another of having too much on our plates and setting ourselves unrealistic daily to-do lists to feel like we are making progress. As counterintuitive as it may seem, I am here to say stop doing this! Most days, I underestimate how much I can accomplish, which gives me more time to work on my tasks. If I have spare time, it feels like I am running ahead, even if the plan is just in my head. Make sure to spread out your tasks over the week too.
Take a look at your Eisenhower Matrix and pick a few tasks from each section. We are not going to aim to tackle all urgent and important tasks in one day, because it just isn’t going to happen, and you will burn out before reading week has even started. By spacing out your workload, you’re more likely to commit to getting it done, and you will find you have more time to do the things you enjoy. I used this technique during my undergrad to study for exams while snowboarding in Austria, and I had plenty of time to board and still did well in my exams. If you find you can set realistic targets in reading week, you may find that it works for you in semester time too.
Make Time to Move
If you’re not planning to travel far in reading week (or even if you are), it’s still really important to get some exercise in, and get your body moving. Not only does exercise support your studying, it’s essential to give yourself a brain break. Whether you want to do that in the form of a hot girl walk, a yoga class, or get some adrenaline pumping with a surf or climb, make sure you make time to get moving. Of course, it’s great for your physical health, but with lots of assignments and a big crunch period, it’s even more important for your mental health. Combined with balanced eating, a good sleep routine, and a healthy dose of time doing the things you love with the people you love, you can be onto a winning strategy with your reading week.
Reflect on your Progress
It can be easy to crash out at the end of a long day, but just five mindful minutes before you head to bed can make a world of difference. Make time to write down three things you are grateful for; they can be from that day, or something other. There’s no wrong answer, and it doesn’t have to be huge things; there are lots of little everyday things we forget about that we can also reflect on and be grateful for. Journaling, on the whole, can bring you a big boost in your daily life.
I’ve been doing this for years now, and it is so lovely to look back on all my records of three things each day and see how far I’ve come. It’s a great little tool to use at the end of your day, especially when you don’t feel productive, as it allows you to look back on what you have managed to achieve. Some days, for me, it’s completing my to-do list; others, it’s having access to clean water.
Hopefully, some of these strategies work for you, in whatever form you find fits best into your reading week routine. However you’re spending your reading week, I hope it’s fun, restorative, and productive. Make sure you look after yourself, and everything else will follow. Good luck!