Anyone who is either in college or has ever spoken to a college student knows that college is stressful. Like, crazy stressful. The worst part is the stress seems to come in waves; one week you'll hardly have any homework, and the next week you'll have two papers, a midterm, a group project, and four club meetings. I'm at the beginning of my sophomore year of college, so I have a whole year of stress (and stress management!) under my belt. I like to think I've done a fairly good job of handling the stress that college brings, barring the one mental breakdown I had on the phone with my mom second semester last year. After a year of college, I've come to recognize three strategies to keep from getting so stressed out you can hardly function.
1. Get (and use!) a good planner and calendar
While weeks where you have tons going on and you're feeling the pressure are inevitable, keeping an organized planner and calendar are very useful to help prevent those weeks as much as possible. I am well-known among my friends for having both a paper planner (I love this one) and a meticulously organized online calendar. A lot of people like Google Calendar as an online system, but I personally prefer the Apple calendar because it syncs to my Apple Watch. I use my online calendar to keep track of classes, appointments, and meetings so I always known when I have things going on. I use my paper planner to keep track of homework, assignments, and exams. The combination of the two keeps me from forgetting about things and finding myself super overwhelmed.
I do have to offer a caveat to this point, however. These things only work if you use them! Writing down your homework in a planner only keeps you organized if you use it every day. Looking at your planner once a week certainly won't keep you from being overwhelmed!
2. Start assignments early
As soon as something (let's say a paper) is assigned, write down the due date in your planner. Then, look at what you have going on that same week or day. If you have a test that day as well as the paper being due, it would behoove you to start the paper early so the night before the test you can focus most of your energy on studying. Staying on top of your work will be the most important thing to keep you from being super stressed out!
3. Make time for yourself
Whether you love watching Netflix, reading, working out, or just hanging out with your friends, you need to make time for it! Even in your crazy busy weeks, downtime is so crucial for your overall well-being. It isn't healthy to be constantly working and running around. Setting aside at least an hour a day to do things for yourself will make you feel better, relieve stress, and make your work time more productive! I find that if I give myself eight hours to do a task that should really only take two or three hours, I'll end up taking all eight hours to do it. On the flip side, if take a couple of hours to myself and then work on the task, I get it done much more efficiently and the quality of my work is usually higher!
I hope these strategies help y'all in your crazy times in college!