As a student, nearing deadlines, parental stress and the uncertain future can feel like being stuck in the middle of a tornado. Stress. It’s a natural part of being a student, but feeling the gnawing pit in your stomach and existential dread constantly doesn’t benefit anyone, so here’s how to deal with it:
“By failing to plan, you are planning to fail” - Benjamin Franklin
Planning, especially during exam season, is your best friend. No matter what platform you use, do yourself a favour and plan your time wisely. As a student, remembering all your deadlines in your head can be a massive headache. It’s exhausting, and often leads to potential “past-due date” disasters. Memories aren’t the most reliable source and you can end up procrastinating big-time because “the deadline is like a whole week away”. When all your deadlines are in one clean calendar, suddenly everything is due much sooner than you thought and it saves you the stress of trying to file deadlines in your brain.
1b. Which planner should you choose?
Secondly, pick a planner platform. Some prefer compact, handheld daily planners, so they can always carry it with them and plan by the hour. Some like a big whiteboard calendar to see all their due dates above their desk and some like online organizers with different pages to organize everything in their life in a visually pleasing manner. If you like digital planners, I strongly recommend using Notion to lay out your life plans. However, think of which one you would like and go for it! Some other examples include: Google Calendar, Taskade, OnPlanners and many more.
2. "Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today." - Thomas Jefferson
Easier said than done, but you need to stop procrastinating. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say scrolling through TikTok and watching Netflix for hours can provide much more immediate serotonin than studying for hours, but knowing the ending to that episode isn’t going to help you get where you want to be. The 95% on the biology exam you spent weeks studying for without distractions will. This being said, don’t overwork yourself or you’ll be sure to burnout. Instead, try to test your limits and see where the line is, because no one knows you like you. My advice: once you receive an assignment, DO IT! That’s right: no “but this is due in a week” or “I have time”, just take a shot at it immediately to get the gears turning in your brain. If you finish your work right when you get it, you have the rest of the time to relax without the guilt of “should I be doing that assignment”. This rule works well with minor assignments, but take a little more time (not too much though) with your more major assignments. What helps me follow this rule is that if I procrastinate on one assignment, I could get another major assignment the next day and another the next, and suddenly I’m in a huge pile of stress. Basically, what I’m saying is to do something today that your future self will thank you for later. Whatever you do, never say “I’ll do it tomorrow” because let’s be real: you won’t. So just start, because no time is better than the present.
3. What’s your Purpose?
We hear these classic questions all the time, more and more as we grow: What’s your purpose? What are you going to do with your life? What’s your future goals? If you're an overthinker like me, you may have caught yourself feeling that good ol’ existential dread every time your work starts piling up: Why am I doing this? How does this benefit me? What am I doing with my life? You might just ignore it and tally it up to teenage angst, but I say to address it head on. Remembering why you try so hard when you’re stressed can feel like a warm hug, and saves you from the stress of the, “what is my purpose?” crisis you’ll have later if you don’t figure it out now. Thinking of why I put myself through all this stress and what I plan to accomplish fills me with a sense of joy and motivation, because doing work without a goal can lead to an eventual breakdown. So, think about your motivation and future plans. It can be money, getting a job to help others, making a change in the world, family, or anything to motivate you to push through everything. After you figure this out, make a vision board of motivational quotes, your future aspirations, and more to keep you going in the hard times. Every time you think, “what am I doing with life?”, look at your board to remind yourself of your dreams. Trust me, it will relieve your stress by giving you motivation!
4. Clutter-free workspace = clutter-free mind
When you think of exam season, you might think of textbooks lying on the floor, papers covering a desk, notebooks on the bed, clothes flung on the barely visible ground, but numerous studies prove that a messy room is far from ideal when studying. Scientists at the Princeton University Neuroscience Institute used FMRI and other approaches to show that our brains like order (Sander, 2019), and that constant visual reminders of disorganization drain our cognitive resources and reduce our ability to focus. A messy desk typically contains more things than you actually need. When you have visual clutter in front of you, your attention will keep shifting to things that are not important to your work, impairing your ability to focus on the task at hand. This relates to managing stress because less focus=less work done=more work=more stress. So, just clear your desk, take a deep breath, and work. You'll benefit from it, and a clean room won’t hurt you.
Edited By: Khushi Kumari
Works Cited
Sander, L. (2019, March 25). The Case for Finally Cleaning Your Desk. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-case-for-finally-cleaning-your-desk
Shaaminy Kathir attends grade 9 at Bayview Secondary School. Her favourite subjects are English and chemistry. In her free time, she enjoys writing, listening to music, drawing and baking.