As Uni students, we can often feel like we are trying to juggle hundreds of commitments at once. For example: finding the time to go to lectures, tutes, study, do assignments, keep healthy, work, family, friends, partners, getting drunk every now and then — the usual stuff! If you leave everything up in the air and unorganised it tends to get very easy to miss things and you end up having that dreaded feeling of regret when you know you should have done something but decided to take a quick nap instead.
I know you would have heard it all before: plan out this, plan out that, blah blah blah. But coming from somebody who never used to plan out anything, it really does pay off to spend a little bit of time to plan out different things in your life.
Uni work
You’re not getting into all this HECS debt for nothing, you are here to work hard and set yourself up for whatever there is to come in the future, so you want to make sure you use your time efficiently in regards to your classes.
If you are studying full time this just gets trickier, but here are some tips I like to do to make Uni commitments just that little bit less stressful.
At the start of the semester get a large printout of some form of calendar that spans over the duration of the whole semester — including the exam period. Stick this on the back of your bedroom door, go through the unit guides for your courses and fill in the calendar with all the due dates for your assessments so that you have a clear picture of what is due when; this will help when you have that stubborn set of classes that like to make a few things due all at the same time. You will be able to plan out the previous weeks with how much time you need to spend towards studying or completing assignments so that they are not being rushed all in the last minute and cause you to have a meltdown.
The same goes for exams. The exam timetable is often not announced until towards the end of the semester, so as soon as you get it, fill in these times and you can start to repeat the process.
Keeping healthy
This is a very important thing for me and if I didn’t plan out my training schedule I would not be nearly as productive. Putting this training into your day-to-day schedule helps lock in that you are actually going to do it at a specific time and you lose the excuse of “oh I just don’t have time”. The positive mental health benefit of keeping fit and healthy is so underrated and is something I find essential while going through uni as it does tend to come with a stress load that is ridiculous.
If you play sports, then great — you’re already one step ahead and you will understand what I am talking about. But a lot of students that may have not had much to do with sport or anything like that may not realise there is more to it than trying to look good. I started going to the gym for rehab and general strength training because I love sport but my body decided to break and I have had many injuries. At the moment I’m not involved in any sport — I just have my training program that I have tweaked along the way that works at improving my physical fitness and, like I said, it does wonders for my mental health. I notice when I stop or have to have a break away from the gym for a few days or a week I start to get in mental states that are far from positive.
So yes, it does take time, effort and commitment for those days when you have no motivation whatsoever, but there has never been a day where I have thought it wasn’t all worth it. Once you see improvements you really do get addicted and it makes you a hell of a lot more productive in the other areas of your life!
Make a plan, go and see a professional about it and get some help starting to become a little healthier because that’s the hardest part. You won’t regret it.
General
Then there’s everything else. You really do need to make the effort to hang out with friends and family and have fun. It is so important for you to break away from uni work every now and then and not let yourself worry too much. You see how on those movies how the typical workaholic who takes their worries from work back home with them are always so depressed and have meltdowns, that’s because they don’t give themselves time to relax!
Make a budget that outlines all your income and expenses and sort out how you actually are financially, this will give you an idea on how much you can save and how much you are really going to need to leave there for all the expenses you need to cover and not just spend it all on food at the café and beers on a Wednesday night J
All in all, just take the time beforehand to plan, please. It will actually save you time in the long run and leaves you feeling that much more organised and satisfied with yourself. Especially if you are a stress-head like me and just constantly worry about assessments and everything else. It makes everything just a little easier.
Well, that’s all I can be bothered writing today so have fun with making up your schedules and planning out everything from now on 😉
– Sam