New Year, New Beginning
It’s a new year, and you know what that means—a list of self-progressing resolutions with the promise of a better you in the near future. Better grades, less procrastination, being more prepared—these are ideal characteristics we’d like to embody for the entirety of our semester. However, I know that for most of us, after about the first month, going out with the gang rather than staying in to finish that paper tends look more appealing.
Although, sacrificing your Friday in order to finish a paper isn’t necessarily the only scenario. Try not to categorize your life into school v social—it’s not that black and white. This semester, attempt to find that happy medium.
During your first week of classes, get the syllabus for each, and immediately put mark the due dates into a calendar. From there, try to set your own mini-milestones. It can be daunting to have to sit down, research, write and then proofread a 20 page paper. By breaking it down into a task list, you can complete the paper step by step. One day you can just gather information; another day, pull out key facts; a week later begin an outline…and so on. Who knows maybe you’ll even be so inspired one day to just finish the paper earlier than the usual night before. Some other suggestions for breaking down those projects into manageable mini-milestones:
- Review project requirements
- Research
- Pull out key facts
- Create outline
- Add the content
- Review!
You can adapt the task list based on each project, or even combine tasks for multiple projects. If you have more than one assignment to research, then spend an hour researching one, and then switch to research the other. It will allow you to keep your momentum going, while using your time efficiently. Just think this semester you could have a stress free life and great grades! By tackling smaller tasks over an extended period of time, you will only have to spend an hour on a task, rather than an entire week. Plus, by getting a head start, it will provide you the opportunity to determine problem areas that you may need to consult your teacher with.
It’s a new year, which means it’s an opportunity for a new beginning.
