When you are in college, it’s incredibly important to have some downtime mixed in with your already busy schedule. Get involved, of course, but make sure that you have some downtime planned out. That’s something that I’ve definitely noticed throughout my freshmen year and with several of the freshmen I’ve met this year. Constantly working and constantly studying does more harm than good. What you all need is downtime!

It took me all of freshmen year to really figure out that that is what I needed. I worried about homework a lot, went home and worked on the weekends, I had little downtime until I started making some for myself during the spring semester. I would purposefully plan out time to read my own books, despite needing to tear through Odyssey. I would watch TV shows for an hour or two to take a break from studying. I wrote articles for Odyssey to help distract me even more. I still got my work done and did great in my classes, and the downtime really helped with that.

This past weekend (Labor Day weekend) I was one of the only people who stayed on campus from my hallway and out of my friend group. Understandably, the weekend was rather boring, and I kind of loved that aspect. There was no loud music blaring, I didn’t hear crazy people running around the building at 2 A.M. (it’s happened before), it was a pretty simple weekend. I really got to really learn the greater importance of downtime.

After getting work done on Friday, I pretty much spent Friday night driving around trying to get things done before retiring to my room with dinner from Husky and my roommate’s Netflix. I went to a family gathering and got to see relatives that I don’t see terribly often. I came back to have dinner from Husky again and then binge watch some more Netflix. I went on a run around campus to get somewhat energized. I continually watched Harry Potter movies. I had downtime.

I understand throughout the whole weekend that I had homework to work on. Two thirds of Beowulf and short story for another class. A paper on that short story. Algebra homework. Planning for my on-campus job. It lingered the entire time that I had other stuff I needed to do or could have been doing. I knew, though, that I undoubtedly needed this downtime that I gave myself. I knew that I would regret this graciously long weekend if all I did was work on my homework. Cheers to Netflix and Harry Potter and downtime in general!

Just keep this all in mind when you are spending twelve hours on a Saturday studying constantly. It’s not only counterproductive to do that, it hurts you in general. After an hour or two watch a TV show, read a little of that book you have on your desk, play games with your friends, go on a jog around campus. Have downtime, it’s a lot more important than you know.