The opinions expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at DePauw chapter.
This semester, I decided to be as on top of my academics as I possibly could be. Ironically, it’s my last semester of college, and I wish this motivation had found me earlier, like sophomore year. Nonetheless, if it was going to be any semester, the one where I am completing two senior theses is also not the worst time to want to be on top of my academics.
The biggest “trick” to starting the week ahead on homework and assignments is Saturday. Did you know that the library is a great place to go to on a Saturday? I have come to love the Saturday crowd. I go to the library around noon; this way, I can still sleep in a bit but also make it to the dining hall for brunch before making my way over to the library to get some work done.
The second biggest “trick” to starting the week ahead and feeling good about wanting to stay ahead is also giving yourself a light at the end of the tunnel. What I mean by this is when you go to do work on Saturday, pick a time to start and a time to be done. Don’t do anything other than work within those two times because you are committing to doing 3 or 4 hours of work. Maybe more if you are ambitious. If you know that this might be difficult for you to commit to 3 or 4 straight hours of work then build in breaks to your schedule but make sure the time you set aside to work you are getting work done for the whole of that time.
For me, like I said, I get to the library around noon and commit myself to doing work from noon to 4. This way, I know that when I start, I will be done at 4, and I can leave the library and not think about work for the rest of the day. I used to start my homework at 6 in the evening on Sundays, and that was horrible. I would try to focus on work but couldn’t because I didn’t want to get anything done on a Sunday night, and no matter how late I stayed up, my productivity was nowhere what I needed it to be to get everything done for class on Monday and to not fall behind by Tuesday.
The secret is not just to do work on Saturday, you also need to put in the time on Sunday. However, because you are splitting up your working hours between two days during the more productive hours of young people, you might surprise yourself with how much you can get done. If you commit to working about 4 or so hours on both Saturday and Sunday then by Sunday at 4 in the afternoon you’ve already worked for 8 hours and if you need more time and you commit to working for 2 more hours then you’ve put in a total of 10 hours of nothing but work that weekend.
This is the ideal. I would be lying if I said all my weekends looked like this, but I do try to get something done on Saturday to make my Sunday less stressful. I work on Saturdays most weekends in the afternoon, so I can’t always go to the library and do work for 4 hours, no matter how badly I want to because I know it will make future me happy on Sunday night. If you get one thing from this article, let it be this: Even if you have 15 minutes, try to get some work done. Every little bit of time you work adds up. But it has to be a time when you are 100% committed to getting work done. If you “work” for an hour, but if you scroll on Tik Tok for 15 minutes, then go to Instagram for 5, and play Monopoly Go for another 20 minutes, and you actually only worked for 20 minutes, then it’s an hour used wisely. Sometimes, getting the work done makes scrolling on Tik Tok, watching TV, or playing games that much more enjoyable because you don’t feel guilty about how you are spending your free time when you’re ahead on work. With that being said, I wish you all the best in your studying, and sometimes, having a study buddy can help keep you accountable if you both are committed to getting your work done!
