Have you ever had one of those dreams where you’re trying to drive a car, but none of the pedals or the wheel works, so you can’t control it and you crash into a bunch of stuff and ruin everything and cost your family a lot of money and get arrested and go to jail for like 50 years? Because that’s how I felt just now when I looked in my planner and realized that oh god, finals are only two weeks away.
If you’re like me and you have no idea how you’re going to get everything finished, then thinking now about how you’re going to cope with your workload will definitely help you feel a little more at ease going into the busiest time of the semester. Here are some of the strategies I’ll be using to get through finals:
- Take it one thing at a time
-
If you try to tackle everything at once, you’ll spread yourself too thin very quickly. Try your best to set a manageable goal for each day and focus as best you can on that. What helps me the most is focusing on either my most pressing deadline, or focusing on the smaller assignments so I don’t have any distractions while working on the bigger ones.
- Remember, you’re still a human person
-
That’s right! Just because it’s finals doesn’t mean you don’t still need to take care of your body by eating, showering, sleeping, and the like. It might be tempting to skip some of these things when you’re stressed (especially eating), but do your best to eat at least something— it’ll help you concentrate better and make you less cranky and tired.
- You seriously need something to look forward to every day
-
Don’t let these next few weeks be an endless loop of rolling out of bed way too early only to go to classes and work on assignments until you collapse from exhaustion at the end of the night. College is all about stamina, and you’ll run out of that fast if you don’t take breaks and set aside a little time to relax every day. It might feel like you have no time for these things, but it’s important that you make the time; being miserable for the next three weeks will not help your productivity.
I promise things aren’t as scary as they look now. You’re gonna do great. Good luck!