Illustration Credit: Aiden Fung
If managing your day is a struggle, try these time-tested tips!
Mauli Shah, Contributor
It is difficult to adjust to the immediate whirlwind of university after a long and laid-back summer. Finding time for yourself is one of the things that is important for your mental health but after scratching a lot of things off your to-do list, everyone gets exhausted. In this article, I am going to list things that I recommend doing to help reduce your stress and take a break from the academics. There can be a lot of things which come under the definition of a hobby, like trying a new café or go rock climbing. You can do a multitude of things that might not fall under the society’s view of what a hobby should be but if that makes you happy, it is worth taking time out for.
One of the greatest tips is to prepare everything in advance, maybe do meal plan the week before, or list out your to-do list with the essentials a week in advance. This reduces your stress on the day when you must work since you don’t have to think about what you’re doing on that day. This will significantly reduce the time to list out the tasks and thinking when you will do them. If you’re still tired after a long day but want to focus on your hobbies? Try put on some good headphones and blast around 5 upbeat songs that you really like or haven’t heard in a while. This will immediately put you back in the mood for doing the things you like.
If you have a long commute and wasting time anyway but don’t want to whip out your laptop when you’re in the TTC? Try to find things you can do on your phone, like journaling about your days, reading a good book or writing a short story. You can even take inspiration for your story from your fellow commuters, and when you look back on your day, you will have a good memory of it. If you just want more time for your hobbies or even working out, you can look at them as your chores. Try to put the things you want to do for your leisure as a task on your to-do list or calendar and try to wrap your schedule around it. To add onto it, you can even put it as a chore every day. This way, even if you have a busy schedule for 4 days, you can focus on your hobbies for 3.
Sometimes, all you need is a little push to do things that you want to do. With the homework and assignments, it is quite easy to lose focus on yourself. However, you need to remember to spend time on yourself and do those things you are interested in since they will help you take a little break from your long to-do list. Try to take some time out today to do one thing that you like!
