JOURNAL ENTRY #10: ORGANIZATION AS STUDENT

Hey, guys. How are you? What are you up to these days? Let me tell you a little bit about me. During this quarantine, I've faced several issues to stay focused and get my homework done as, at the moment, I'm taking online classes and that slightly complicates everything considering I'm less than one year away from my college graduation. Among essays, professional practices and a lot of readings, it's been challenging to adapt to this new learning (and also teaching) style; nevertheless, I've come to realize that organization is everything in these tough times so I decided to take this entry to share some hacks on how to navigate through this intense but intriguing online-student life without dying in the attempt:

Set a schedule: Have a moment to decide what hours you are going to use to finish all your pending assignments. It is better if you wake up early in the morning as you can have more chances to divide your time more realistically and get more job done.

Make a list of every task you have to do: Enlist weekly ALL the homework you have to do, even including tasks that are to be delivered one or two months later; that's the only way you won't forget anything.

Try to have as much work done as possible prior deadlines: Even if you know you have plenty of time to prepare an assignment, if you have a free moment a weekend before the deadline, try to give yourself time to finish it or at least to make some notes or brainstorm briefly some ideas in order to have a solid starting point that might help you to develop your work later.

Stay in contact with your teachers at all times: It doesn't matter how silly you think a question might be, ask your teacher every single detail that may not be clear for you sending them a quick message. This is very important as, due to distance, teachers can't really tell if students are actually on the right path when doing assignments and, in some cases, they may take for granted that we have understood every single detail when it's actually quite the opposite. 

Maintain a balance: Not everything has to be hard work. Have a moment between tasks to catch a break and do something fun or relaxing (watch a movie, listen to music, take a short nap) to recharge those batteries, and continue working later. Before falling into the classical and chaotic procrastination spiral, remind yourself that you have work that needs to be done and also that, the earlier you finish with your tasks, the sooner you will have more time for yourself.