SLEEP!

At this point in the year, I feel like no matter how much well-meaning advice I receive, I’m on autopilot and just trying to power through and finish everything, sometimes completely disregarding basic self-care like drinking water, eating proper meals, showering, and sleeping. This is a PSA to pause, take a breath, stretch, drink water, eat a proper meal, shower, and SLEEP. It’s important to give yourself time to recharge and refocus so that you can do more, do it quickly, and do it effectively. If my words aren’t enough to convince you, here are some cuties who might be able to sway you:

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When was the last time you were excited for tomorrow?

We’re nearing the end of term. Sometimes I can’t help but feel like the days are dragging on and on. Average day after average day with some not-so-great days interspersed between, the number of not-so-great days increasing as we near deadlines that come hand-in-hand with the end of term thanks to professors cramming in the last weeks of curriculum in the final days.

Maybe today wasn’t the greatest day. Maybe you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Maybe you fell out of the bed. Maybe you woke up feeling burnt. It’s okay, you don’t have to be great all the time. But guess what? You don’t have to bring that into tomorrow.

Today can be great. And if it isn’t, no biggie. Tomorrow can still be great. Because you are great.

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Productive procrastination

Today’s post comes as a continuation of last week’s positive procrastination!

Watch TED Talks | Whenever I watch TED Talks, I’m always in awe of the powerful messages the speakers share, in awe of how articulate they are, and in awe of how fun learning can be. Learning is more than just textbooks!

Netflix Khan Academy and Chill | It’s what all the cool kids do nowadays. Trust me. I’m a science.

Browse Athena’s Guide | We try our best to make our posts engaging with informative topics and fun GIFs!

Browse Her Campus | It’s like BuzzFeed, but specifically for Mawrters, and written by Mawrters!

Write for Her Campus | Have something you want to talk about but don’t have a platform to share it on? Her Campus got you!

Organise | Your room, your planner, your email inbox, etc.

Positive procrastination

I think we’ve all procrastinated something at some time in our lives. If you haven’t, please teach me your ways. Now, we can either feel bad about procrastinating, work on not procrastinating, or work with procrastination.

Here’s an article from the New York Times about positive procrastination and it brings to attention two approaches:

  1. Procrastinate the high-priority task by doing a bunch of low-priority tasks.
  2. Give yourself the options of doing the high-priority task or doing nothing.

Before reading this article, I had always gone with the first approach. And the author was right, procrastinators with this kind of habit (me) have a reputation for getting a lot done.

Now let me summarize how the author proposes the second approach works (and maybe even persuade you to attempt this method). If you’re the kind of procrastinator who procrastinates high-priority tasks by doing a bunch of low-priority tasks, then this second approach will most likely work for you. This is because even though procrastinators aren’t getting done what is most urgent, they’re getting a lot of other things done, probably to assuage the guilt of procrastinating the high-priority task. “Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing.” So if you give yourself the option of doing the high-priority task or doing nothing, it’s likely that you won’t be able to stand doing nothing, and you’ll finally get around to starting that high-priority task.

Give this method a go! And if it doesn’t work out, I’ll be back next week with a list of ways for you to productively procrastinate 😉

Combatting homesickness

I’m not the kind of gal who gets homesick too easily, but there was one point during my first year at college when I did get a little homesick. I blame it on the fact that I was getting tired of the dining hall food and thus eating pizza for almost every meal, which sounds like a good idea, but actually made me feel a little sick after awhile. To combat homesickness, I went on Youtube and searched up a video of someone making 煎饼 (jiān bǐng), my favourite Chinese street food. I admit that it did little to help, but a little help it did!

I tried to come up with a few more effective ways to combat homesickness and thought I’d share it with y’all. It’s that time of year when students start missing home a bit. Stay strong, fall break is only a week away!

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