Time to Get Serious(ly pumped about University)!

So to begin, this is my first post as a real eAmbassador which is unbelievably exciting! I think I’m going to leave my old posts up, but anything before this post is exactly that: a “before” post that I probably won’t be revisiting. From now on I’ll be posting every Tuesday evening, and also tweeting regularly from @britneyrobinGL.

In other news, I met most of the eAmbassador team at training and they’re all really wonderful people that I’m thrilled to be working with. Seriously, their blogs don’t lie, all of them are genuinely friendly and helpful, not to mention funny and charismatic. I’m just sitting there pretending to be cool enough to be one of them, and hoping no one sees through me.

me on the inside

Now onto today’s actual topic:

University started so suddenly that I felt like I was playing catch-up from the first day. I’ve never been the most organized of people but when I looked around my dorm room and could barely see the floor I knew I needed to get out of summer mode and return to real life.

It’s hard. I imagine it’s different for commuters, but living in res you are constantly surrounded by friends and people who could potentially be new friends. If you’re not socialising at all times you can start to feel like you’re missing out. If any of you ever had, or currently have, a “spare” period at the same time as your high school BFF’s then you know the feeling. (Only multiply it by 1000.) So cue the procrastination because “making friends is important too”. Ohhh Britney of a few weeks ago, you were such a naïve child.

You can’t put things off in University. You just can’t. It’s not necessarily because the work is hard, or because every single assignment in every single class is worth a third or more of your grade (a myth perpetuated by my high school teachers, -thank guys!). It’s more because there is so much else to do. For me, that’s remembering to do laundry, and setting aside time to write blog posts, and the heaps of time I spend skyping my family and friends from home. Also eating. I have the horrible habit of regularly forgetting to eat. On top of all that, I’m a big believer in having some time to just sit and breathe every now and then. For me at least, it’s good to be alone with a book or my laptop for a few hours a week. I need it to recharge and to take stock of my mental health. (Plus I’m a TV junkie, so I need to stay caught up on my shows! I can’t do that if I’m behind on my actual responsibilities!)

So how am I going to train myself to make time? How am I going to buckle down and not procrastinate? Isn’t that the question that plagues the majority of students? Well, I’m never going to be perfect at it, that’s for sure, but I think the most important thing is to actively manage my time. In the past the only thing that’s worked for me is literally scheduling out my busy days hour by hour and then, armed with inspiring playlists and many, many, many, mugs of tea, followed that schedule as closely as possible. And, unsurprisingly I have an app for it! I’ve tested out dozens of productivity and list-making apps for my phone but by far 30/30 is my favourite. It’s free, and it’s brilliant. I have a hard time explaining exactly what it is (a list with a timer?) but I’ll link you guys to it. Seriously, check it out, especially if you’re somebody who works best when their tasks are written out visually.
(Here you go: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/30-30/id505863977?mt=8)

Also, I’ve been reminding myself regularly just how badly I want to be here, and how hard I worked to get here. University was my dream, and it feels like a dream still, so I’m just trying to get my feet firmly planted in the ground. I’ve been waiting for so long to be where I am, that it’s easy to forget that now that I’m actually here it’s time to get serious.

My absolute number one tip for this week is a little off topic but here it is;

Don’t completely mess up your sleep schedule in the first week of school just because you’re tired from frosh. Don’t do it. Poor sleep will literally halve your productivity. It’s not worth it. (If my mother knew my current sleeping habits she would be calling me every day at 8am to get me out of bed, so shhh don’t tell her.)

ohh does class start in 10 minutes?

-Britney