A new semester of school is upon us, and though it has felt like I've been on a brain vacation for too many months now, I still somehow don't feel prepared for the mental rigor of a new course load. While these tips may pertain more towards those of us in school, I apply these techniques to all of my responsibilities in life (work and sorority events included) and hope I can help cast some light on the overwhelm that January can be for some.
As we begin the new year, I find it important to set myself up for success in my up-and-coming semester at college. This can look different for a lot of people, but I want to share a few ways I take the anxiety out of a new semester, new professors, and new assignments.
I usually begin by reading over my course syllabi and creating google slides or excel documents of all of my assignments, test dates, and other due dates. It's up to you whether you combine all of your classes into one document or keep separate documents for each; depending on my course load, I generally opt for separate documents because the longer the document the more my brain gets overwhelmed. If you decide to combine all classes into one document, you can set excel to numerically sort those dates to create a color coded schedule of all future assignments. This helps make sense of a generally exhaustive and overwhelming list of life for the next five to six months.
Just creating a document of your classes is plenty good enough and offers a separated and easy-to-consume means of planning your week and accomplishing all you need to. I take it one step further week by week, because I use my bullet journal as an additional accountability source. I copy my assignments for that week into my new spread and create an extra source I am looking at each day, which makes me positive that I am not forgetting an entire class of assignments or forgetting all about that excel document.
Overall, I try to set myself up for success by creating a manageable, week-by-week layout of my responsibilities. This is so helpful especially when trying to factor in time to schedule myself for work or find time to hang out with friends or for hobbies.
I have also created a word document for my major and minor requirements to graduate at my university, and an ideal schedule of what my semesters can look like. This is especially helpful when trying to register for classes and the inevitable "class closed" message comes up before I get a chance to secure my spot. I also find myself looking back at this list when I am struggling in any of my courses, because it gives me the list of options I have for other possible courses to take, or puts into perspective that I need to just put my head down and struggle through the next semester to be a step closer to my degree.
Creating a positive environment for a new year or semester doesn’t necessarily need to be full of sage, setting intentions, speaking to the universe, or praying you finally get your life together. It can be as easy as taking 15 minutes at the beginning of each week to plan and set yourself up for success.