This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Temple chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.
I think we can all agree that the semester has flown by, and before we know it, a new semester begins. Despite the last few months absolutely zooming by, I have tried my best to enjoy the days and live more in the moment while setting myself up to have a smooth week. I changed a few things about the ways I go about my days to navigate both self-care and staying on top of things. Here is a quick list of how I’ve altered my day-to-day.
- Laundry on Sunday, no matter what. In freshman year, when I lived in the dorms, I did not have a set day to do all of my laundry, which included my clothes, my sheets, and my towels. It would always end up being a frenzy trying to fit in time to do laundry when I needed it throughout the week with classes and other commitments. Present-day, I have shifted to making the time to do all three loads on Sunday morning or afternoon so that I can check it off the list for the week. Doing this has helped me to feel so much more organized while knowing that I will not have to squeeze in time to wash and dry everything during the week.
- Make a grocery list throughout the week and set a day to go in advance. I can’t even express the amount of stress this takes off my plate. I bet you know the feeling of having to grocery shop but not being sure of what exactly you need. Creating a list as you go helps a ton to ensure everything you need is bought, while also taking away the stress of having to scramble to make a last-minute list before catching the subway.
- Lay out clothes the night before. I used to do this back in high school as I had to wake up around 6 am and did not feel like having to pick out an outfit while being that tired. Even though I do not have to be up as early for my classes now, I have recently restarted laying out what I want to wear the night before. I find that it makes the mornings go a lot smoother; this gives me more time to drink my coffee, make something to eat, and get ready for the day.
- Make a big meal early in the week and keep the leftovers. Between work and school, it can quickly become difficult to come up with meal ideas on the fly. While it may seem like you have a lot of food, creating a quick meal with limited ingredients can be stressful and not fun. Something I like to do either on Sunday or early in the week is to make a big batch of one of my favorite meals (something that will last three to four days in the fridge), eat a portion, and then store the rest away for the rest of the week. Knowing you can come home from class and have a full meal helps to create a stress-free and productive week without worrying about coming up with something to eat after a long day.
These are just my tips, but there are so many more little things like this you can do to save yourself time and set yourself up for a smooth week of classes and commitments. I have found that small changes like this have led to much larger results in terms of just feeling mentally better and more collected.