Bad days are pretty much beyond inevitable, especially when dealing with the hardships of college and holding a job and trying to maintain friendships, and a social life, and time to yourself…, and sanity and…, well you get the idea. Juggling all of these things can push you to the point where you feel like juggling none of it and end up putting it all off, or at least that’s the point I reach in a lot of cases. It can take a lot to climb out of those ruts, especially when you lose all motivation to even try, but I promise you it is completely possible to escape this hole and even prevent it.
Between crying of frustration and totaling deleting fully written papers (like this article that I’ve now rewritten four times), I’ve been to the dark side of stress and beyond. It can be a scary place if you’re not a frequent flier like I am, but I’m here to give you a first class ride on the stress management train so buckle up and keep on reading and we’ll work on our stress together.
As much as I’d like to tell you the secret to stress management, I’m still waiting on that sweet sweet piece of information myself. Though, that doesn’t mean I haven’t picked up a few tips and tricks of my own. While a lot of people are going to repeat the word patience over and over to you until patience no longer sounds like it belongs to the english language, I’m simply going to tell you to PACE YOURSELF.
While having patience is a very important part, it’s not going to help when you have an overwhelming mountain of work you’ve been putting off to go through. I urge you to go out and buy some sort of planner or whiteboard or even just make a To-Do list in the note section of your phone. This is the one thing that has helped me overcome a lot of jam packed weeks of school. This doesn’t sound like it will help, but bare with me. Take about five minutes at the beginning of each week and sit down at your desk or bed or wherever you feel most productive and plan your entire week out. I’m talking about work, school, social activities, and even personal time.
This doesn’t have to be strictly followed or intensely planned out, but the more you follow it, the less you’ll have work piled up and the less crunched for time you’ll be. Remember to not just write down the due dates, because we all know you aren’t going to do them until the last minute! Give yourself allotted times to do certain assignments. Maybe you need to read for a class and write an essay on the same reading, try writing down to read at the beginning of the week and give yourself a couple days to write the essay instead of waiting to do it all last minute. I promise if you do this, you’ll feel less and less stressed each week. It doesn’t bring the workload down, but making sure to tackle things one at a time will save you so much time and stress.
This is the absolute biggest change to my life that I’ve made this year and its worked wonders for me. I first tried it after seeing my boyfriend write everything out each week and give himself certain days to study. I wholeheartedly believe that a lot of stress related problems can be solved with some simple time management skills and a little mental push from yourself to keep the procrastinating to a minimum. Of course, I don’t expect you to start bullet journaling, but nothing is more satisfying that looking at a full list of work completely crossed off at the end of the week and if it helps you to doodle while organizing then go for it!
Don’t let the stressin’ get depressin’ and start with some time management skills! And feel free to message me on any form of social media (it should all be linked to my profile) and I would be more than happy to help you plan your week out and share more ideas! It never hurts to get some extra help to get you started.