School is a place where it can be difficult to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Come exam time, a collective groan is often heard from students of all ages. However, some University Hill Secondary and UBC Students say they have learned some strategies that have them on a path to mastering the art of creating a stable life that prioritizes their mental health and time, just as much as their studies.
University Hill Secondary student Delband Doraki is known by her peers as someone who is excellent at managing her time. When Doraki was asked by The Campus Resident how she’s achieved this, she says, “It’s important to start studying as soon as I get home, even if I’m tired. If I leave it off, I just get more and more tired. That way, I have time to chill afterwards”.
It’s a simple tip which appears easy to incorporate, but it can be difficult to execute for those prone to procrastination. A suggestion to overcome this is to set a timer for five minutes to do the task at hand. Once the timer has finished, you can leave the task and go do something else. Often quoted as the ‘five minute rule’, it tricks you into engaging with a task for a short amount of time, making you engaged enough to finish the task. If anything, this is one of the most effective methods to beat procrastination. As another University Hill Student, Quynh Anh Nguyen, puts it: “If you drag yourself to do it even when you don’t want to, you’ll end up doing it anyways”.
To get a better idea on how to get off to a good start every day, The Campus Resident got in touch with University Hill Student Tiffany Wang. She described the beginning of her daily routine as follows: “I wake up at 6:30 a.m. and go to the Beanery with my best friends to eat some bagels. Then I go to school, where I get there early. I also make sure to get my sleep, so I go to bed around 9:30 p.m.”.
Wang says the benefits of this routine are it makes her “more prone to productivity”, whereas before, “a lot of stress came from staying up too late”.
University Hill Student Mehar Hundal says studying methods are also important for success.
“I like to actively read my textbook when I study and then teach the material to myself,” she says. This method is famously known as the Feynman technique and has been proven to be a highly effective way to study.
When studying for exams, Nguyen said she likes to start preparing “at least four days before the test”. Being proactive is not just a skill to be mindful of when studying, but being a proactive person in general is the key to maintaining a balanced life, she adds.
This all leads to one of the most important pieces of the puzzle: daily time management. On this topic, one UBC student says, “I like to block my time. That means that I keep my high energy tasks for the morning, and my lower energy tasks for the evening when my dopamine levels have dropped”.
And to be a master of time management, students must also be the master of arguably the biggest distractor in today’s society: smartphones.
They buzz obtrusively with every notification, and to stay on task, some people put them in another room, set app time limits, and turn off notifications to allow for a distraction-free environment.
A lot of this is easier said then done. Another UBC student has a unique solution to those lacking self-control. “It sounds unhinged, and do this at your own risk,” they said.
“You can enter your phone password wrong multiple times, forcing the phone to disable itself, and there’s no way around it”.
If you’ve been meaning to make this school year as successful as it can be, hopefully these tips can guide you in the right direction.
AIZA MUBASHIR IS A GRADE 12 STUDENT AT UNIVERSITY HILL SECONDARY SCHOOL.