My Monday Morning Ritual

Happy Monday! I've decided it's time everyone stops beating up on Monday - just because it's the first day of the week and the end of the weekend doesn't mean it's all bad! It also means a fresh start and an opportunity to get ahead of all your work for the week!

In order to show you how awesome Monday's can be, I'm going to share my Monday Morning Ritual with you (:

Step 1: Wake Up! Every Monday I try to wake up around 8 AM. I know it sounds early but rarely do I go to bed super late on Sunday and if I wake up early, I feel less rushed getting ready.

Step 2: Caffinate! I get up and make myself a cup of coffee. Another perk of my 8 AM wake up call is that I can actually sit down and enjoy my cup of coffee in a real mug and listen to Spotify's Morning Acoustic. There is no better way to start your week! 

Check out the playlist here!

Step 3: Get ready! By 8:45, I try to be up and in the shower. I always put together a decent outfit for Mondays. Ditch the yoga pants (or running shorts) and put on a pair of jeans if nothing else! You'll feel so much more productive. 

Step 4: Plan your week! After I'm ready (and usually while on my second cup of coffee), I sit down and look at my planner and map out my week. What nights do I have meetings? When am I going to the gym? What tests do I have? Once I know the big things I have to get done in the week, I make a list of all the little things that have to be done by Friday. Then I know what to work on when I have some free time. 

Step 5: Make lunch! Shame on me but I'm not a breakfast eater but I always take my lunch to campus on Mondays. I have a long (3 and a half hour) break between my classes and I try to always go to the library to get started on the small tasks that I have to do. When I take my lunch, I don't feel tempted to procrastinate and go find food else where in places I know I'll run into sisters. 

Step 6: Go to class! Your first class on Monday is always the hardest class to get to because it marks the official end to the weekend but once you make it, your other ones are easier to get to. 

How do you do Monday mornings? We'd love to hear in the comments! 

Start the Semester Strong

Well first semester has come and gone and we are officially done with those classes - thank goodness! I know one of the biggest goals for this semester for many people is to maintain grades better than we did last semester. I have a few tips for to help kick off the semester!

During the first week of classes, go ahead a print off your syllabi for the semester and mark all of the important dates that your teacher gives you or really any dates your teacher gives you into your planner. Don't have a calendar? Utilize the calendar associated with your school's email address.

Bookmark the websites you will use most in the semester for completing school work and un-bookmark sites like Pinterest and Facebook. If nothing else, this helps you stop procrastinating by reminding you of homework regardless of the temptation of other internet sites.

Look at your class schedule and figure out where you have breaks to make it to the library to study. When you make the habit of heading to the library now, it makes it so much easier to wander that way when you feel unmotivated to get there.

Good luck in your classes! What are you taking this semester?

Transition from Summer to School Smoothly

Summer is winding down and it’s (unfortunately) time to get back into the academic flow. It’s beyond exciting to get back to campus and see all of my friends who have scattered across the US this summer, but it can be especially difficult to transition if you’re like me and spent the summer babysitting one of the world’s cutest families instead of a 9-5 internship or job like I have every other summer. When it comes time to transition from summer fun to school drudgery, I need a definite system to keep myself on track.

Probably my favorite back-to-school organizational tool is my dry erase calendar. It’s perfect for my very Type A personality and without it I absolutely would be a disorganized mess. At the beginning of each semester, I grudgingly print out the last page of every syllabus: the assignment list. I set up my month by using my vast array of markers to assign each class, work, DZ, and other things like university events (aka football games, Go Bucks!) a color and mark the assignments accordingly. If I have an extra important assignment like a midterm, I border the entire box so that date is heavily outlined and when I look at my calendar from afar I can clearly see when it’s appropriate to start panicking.

It's actually become infamous among my friends 

Another great way to stay organized is to hang each assignment list somewhere in your room. As the weeks go on highlight the assignments you’ve already completed. I think highlighting is a better alternative than crossing out assignments because you can still read what the assignment was in case you need the dates or anything later on. It’s a really easy way to look at your month week by week to ensure you don’t miss anything important.

I do carry a planner around but since my assignments are pretty spread out, the week-to-week setup of a planner isn’t very helpful and the monthly calendar is so small it would be impossible to fit five or six classes worth of info in those tiny boxes. While I depended on my planner in high school to get by, four years later it’s not such a helpful utensil for me. But my roommate lives by her planner, so it can also be used as a really helpful tool to keep you organized and have a monthly assignment list with a week-by-week breakdown. The same way I use different colored markers on my calendar, I’d suggest different colored pens for your planner just so every assignment doesn’t blend together.

This is probably the most I ended up using my planner… #priorities

One last really easy trick I use to keep my life organized? Since I always have my computer with me (most of my classes run on PowerPoint presentations) I saved my syllabi to my desktop and keep them all in the same place. Next to them I have the document outlining my graduation requirements for quick reference. So when I’m on campus and far from my insane calendar, I have an easy way to find my assignments, even when the wifi decides to kick everyone off the network.

I hope this helps keep your life in order as you switch from summer to school mode, good luck!