Something that a lot of us college students look forward to is the weekend. Why you may ask? Because for us, Monday-Friday is filled with stress of classes, homework, exams, and whatever else the week may have in store for you.
Something I started doing last year as a sophomore in college, was allowing myself one night throughout the weekdays to let myself loose and have fun a little bit. Some of my favorite fun things to do during the week that only take up a couple hours of time, are things like going out to eat with friends, going shopping (specifically Target is my favorite) or just getting ice cream and watching one of my favorite movies.
Something that ties into having fun during the week, is time management and organizational skills. No matter what, you still have things that need to get done, right? All of these things whether it’s school related or not, can feel quite overwhelming or stressful. Something that’s helped me is being organized and knowing all of the tasks and assignments I need to get done during the week. Here’s some tips for keeping yourself and staying organized:
- Create a to-do list: If you don’t have a planned, I highly suggest investing in one, it has helped me immensely
- Break up overwhelming and huge tasks: not everything has to get done at once, break it up & give yourself breaks
- Get yourself into a daily routine: this is proven to help reduce anxiety & stress, you will feel more control over your life
By doing these things I’ve felt less stressed and have found more time on my hands during the week. Always remember that having social interaction is very important, and good for your mental health. Something else that I’ve always remembered is that just because something seems really overwhelming, doesn’t mean you can’t get it done. Just taking things day-by-day is best method.
This is such a helpful post! I sometimes forget to plan everything out and I then get overwhelmed. You would think as a senior (and very well into adulthood) that I would have finally started doing this by now! I will definitely be trying these tips, especially breaking up big tasks. It’s so hard to remember that sometimes!
This is such a cool blog concept. I feel like as students, we tend to just relax on the weekends. However, like you stated in your blog, that is how students get burnout and why we are so stressed all the time. I like how you ended your blog by saying how social interaction is good for your mental health. This was a really hard thing to comprehend during COVID-19 but now that things have started to open up it is a lot easier to connect with new people. I loved this post! Good job!
I think changing your mindset to do fun things even during the weekdays can be extremely impactful for any working professional or college student that has a typical Monday-Friday schedule. I know for myself I always look forward to the weekends since I don’t have classes and I don’t have to work. I never really thought about why I couldn’t do fun things on weekdays as long as my schedule stays balanced and organized. Thank you for the insight on this topic, I will be applying some of these tips to my life so I can make more out of my weekdays.
That seems like such a great strategy to avoid stressing out too much during the week. It’s so hard to plan out activities like this as they can be time consuming and hard to manage throughout the week. I like the idea of creating a to-do list as it creates a level of satisfaction when something is completed. By having this be a daily routine will help me become more efficient and more productive. I can’t wait to see more tips for college students like myself and I found this to be very helpful!
This is a great post!! I also want to mention how well put together your site is! I also agree that the weekends are times to relax, but you also need time during the week to relax in order to not stress yourself out. I think this is extremely important, especially when you have a busy schedule. I personally work two jobs with school, so taking breaks and making sure my mental health is in check before anything is super important to me. I love making lists and having a planner in order to keep myself organized as well!
I loved this post because of all the positivity. I think it can be really easy to get caught up in the stress and negatives of college student life and I totally agree that time management and balancing fun and work is totally essential to staying less stressed in the long run. My favorite ways to decompress from school work is run to Janesville for Starbucks, target, tj max trip! Its my favorite week night spontaneous adventure to let myself have a little fun!
One of the best books I’ve ever read called “Deep Work” truly advocates for these breaks in our daily week. Although, he pushes towards having all of your work finished by 5pm and then turning everything work-related off. Now obviously this isn’t the easiest thing to do as a student, especially when you’re constantly having assignments due. But I do think it’s really important to have a time of night where you set things down and allow yourself to rest and pick it back up in the morning. This helps with stress, anxiety, and also burnout. Mental breaks are super important!
Great post, Kaycee
I think this blog has some really important information in it. I like the idea of setting aside one night to do some self-care and never really thought to do that. I also like how you gave tips on how to achieve that as well because just saying that you should do it make be overwhelming because you don’t know where to start. I really liked how at the end you put a reminder that social interaction is good for mental health because I feel like a lot of people forget that and forget to spend time on themselves rather than just their school work or work in general. I think I will try to use these tips and try to incorporate this into my weekly schedule as well.
This is such a cool blog idea. I really enjoyed reading about what you do in your school week to make it less stressful. I like the idea of having one night a week where you can have a little fun. I know what it feels like to have a workload that is almost too much. Many parts of my week are filled with stress and anxiety. This blog is defiantly in the right direction to help that.
I agree that managing time is a huge life savor in college. I personally work 35 hours a week and also have to schedule around that. I get all my homework done before Friday then only have to worry about work. Those are my days to relax and not worry about next weeks homework. It has helped me tremendously with figuring out what needs to get done and when while still having fun. I also have found it helpful to not work over a week ahead because it stressed me out even more than just getting the current weeks homework done.