Grasping at each tragic event June/ Offred goes through in the Handmaids Tale? Or hooked on the final season of 12 Monkeys? There are plenty of great shows you can watch on TV or stream online to keep you occupied and happy throughout the year. However, when your hobby becomes detrimental to your studies, it is time to rethink your priorities.
Too much work – or in this case study – with no rest leads to burnout. What if too much leisure? It is your duty as a college student to manage your time and activities; even during the holidays. Spending most of your free time streaming episode after episode of the hottest TV show wouldn’t be prudent. Definitely not advisable when you have assignments piling up.
Here are some tips to learn how to satisfy both worlds:
Don’t Procrastinate Your Assignments
If you are still in your first year of college, you probably have a lot of time on your hands. So, why rush on an assignment that isn’t due in a week or so? An essay may need two or three days to write or even a few hours if you decide to buy assignment online from an experienced custom writer. Nonetheless, doing the job early helps you create an endearing culture of getting things done on time. Procrastination is easy to pick up and a tough one to shake off. So, once you plan to do your assignment at a particular time, don’t postpone it. There is a feeling of fulfillment that you get on completing tasks successfully, and you can enjoy your favorite shows with zero anxiety.
Make A Schedule and Stick to It
To best spend your days, plan for them. Make a workable program or plan and commit yourself to it. While it is easy to make a mental plan of your day or week, it is harder to stick to it when you haven’t actually written it down. So, create a schedule and pin it somewhere you can easily see. Schedule time for study and time for leisure activities.
Break Down Your Assignment into Smaller Tasks
Though it is best to complete your work early, you need not finish a task with two weeks’ deadline in a day. Instead, divide it into smaller tasks to complete in a couple of days or a week. For example, if your assignment is to write a critical essay, you can schedule two hours on the first day to background reading. The following day, you can create your thesis and make a list of your sources. Then follow up with creating an essay online during the next session. With this plan, you can complete your essay a week in advance and present a quality essay that you took the time to prepare.
Remove or Keep Off Distractions During Studying
Ensuring maximum concentration while doing an assignment or studying can help you save time to do other things. To achieve this amount of focus, you must consider the environment for your study. If you are in college and living on campus or in your own flat, that environment is probably not the best study space. Trying to study in an environment that is noisy, or containing lots of distractions may turn a one-hour assignment to a several hours’ headache. Instead, find a place that is quiet, cool, well-lighted and most important with minimal/ free from distractions. The faster you get your tasks finished, the more time you have to watch hot new series.
Prioritize
Sometimes, you will find yourself with more than one assignment on hand. The worse thing would be to try and clump up all the work to a single day or to multitask. Ideally, weight the two tasks to determine which one is of highest priority at that time. For example, it would be wiser to tackle an assignment with a closer deadline first. Also, consider the complexity of the tasks. An assignment that is lengthy and more complex requires more time than an easier one.
Give Yourself a Free Day
We all love the one lazy day in the week. Well, having one day that you can do anything you want, without following a schedule, can help break the routine and allow you to do random and spontaneous things. It is prudent to have your off day on a day of the week when you don’t have pressing commitments. Take a walk, treat yourself at the mall or spend the whole day on the couch; it is up to you.