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How to Choose Japanese Manga/Books for Studying

In an ask recently, a user asked me what reading materials I recommend to study with.

I’ve covered the standard textbooks here, and today I’ll talk about how you can determine whether an authentic material is suitable for your studies. All of this advice is based upon my studies in SLA (Second Language Acquisition) and TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), as well as my personal experience learning Japanese.

What’s an Authentic Material?

Authentic materials are print, video, and audio that are not classroom materials, but are things made for Japanese (or any other target language) speakers. A mock advertisement in your textbook is not an authentic material because it is not made for a Japanese person, but an actual Help Wanted ad in a Japanese newspaper is an authentic material.

Authentic materials can be just about anything audio or visual. Manga, light novels, newspapers, magazines, jpop songs, anime, news broadcast, etc.

Today I’m just going to focus on visual authentic materials, but if there’s interest I could make a future post about audio materials too.

1. Decide Your Method of Reading: Intensive or Extensive

When reading to study a foreign language, there are two different ways to go about it, intensive reading or extensive reading.

Intensive Reading

Reading and looking up every single word you do not know, even words that aren’t essential to understanding the main points of the story.

Pros: you learn a lot more vocab

Cons: it takes considerably longer to make progress

In order to do this method effectively (and by effectively I mean “resist chucking your book out the window in a fit of rage”), you must comprehend ~70%* of the content.

Extensive Reading

Basically what you do when you read in your native language. You read each page, and even if you come across a word you don’t know, you keep going. You only look up words that keep coming up, or that hinder your overall comprehension of what’s going on.

Pros: you cover more ground and get a bigger sense of accomplishment

Cons: you can miss out on smaller details

In order to do this method effectively, you must comprehend ~90% of the content.

Neither reading method is better than the other. Choose which style suits your personality best. Personally, I’m one of those people that has to know every last morsel about everything, so I only do intensive reading.

2. Determine How Difficult a Material Is

Up above I said you had to be able to comprehend either 70 or 90 percent of the content depending on the method you want to go with.

In extensive reading, you need to be able to understand almost all the words because you can’t stop to look up a ton of stuff. If you have to look up 15 words on a page because you can’t understand what’s going on, you’re not doing extensive reading–you’re doing intensive reading.

Now, as for the 70% I put on the intensive reading, there’s a bit of give with that, depending on how patient you are haha. If you’re okay with a crawling pace, the comprehension could be 10% if you want. But if you’re like me and you’re a bit hasty, you’re going to want to be able to comprehend around 70-80% of the vocab.

So how do you figure out how difficult the content is? Pick a random page and the first 100 words on it, and count the words you didn’t know. Subtract the words you didn’t know from 100, and the answer will tell you roughly how much you can comprehend of the text. Easy, right?

3. What Makes a Bad Material

I’m betting that anime/manga is what got most of us interested in learning Japanese, and there’s probably that one really nostalgic manga you’re dying to read in its original Japanese format.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but just because you love a series doesn’t make it a good learning material.

Things to Avoid in a Material

Lots of technical, scientific, or military jargon

I know that this wipes out a large swath of series, but the point of reading this is to learn Japanese, and there’s a good chance that most of the vocab you would learn would not be usable in conversation. Why waste the time learning 白刃取り (catching a blade between two palms) when you could be learning something more practical?

Period works (Edo Era and further back)

Many (but not all) period pieces contain a bunch of obsolete words, and the last thing you want to be is one of those gaijin that uses “gozaru” unironically. I tried using the expression 村八分 (ostracism) and got laughed at by my coworkers just last month because that just makes people think of villages in the Edo period.

Long Chapters

Particularly if you’re doing the Intensive Reading method, it’s important to give yourself a sense of accomplishment. It took me an hour to read one page of a book for one of my classes, and 30 hours to read ONE chapter. It was the most frustrating and endless experience I’ve had to date. Pick manga (because chapters are short) or short stories. (I really recommend Hoshi Shinichi’s “short-short” stories.)

Don’t be like poor Kagome

4. What Makes a Good Material

I have saved the most important condition for your material until last.

Are you ready?

Here it is:

Make sure it’s something you like!

I know that this is so basic I shouldn’t even have to say it. But listen, for one of my Japanese courses in uni, I had a semester to read one of Haruki Murakami’s novellas. It was the most difficult and frustrating semester I had because not only was it super hard for me vocab-wise, it was boring as hell. I didn’t enjoy the story, and the ending was so

alskfjksldfjsd

It’s been 6 years and I’m still triggered. It was awful, and it made me feel like all of this toil, all of this suffering, had been for nothing. I thought that I hated reading in Japanese. But actually, when I pushed myself to try reading a manga I liked, I learned that I didn’t hate reading Japanese–

–I just hated reading Murakami.

If you find a material that is the right difficulty level and is appropriate for your purposes but you don’t find it interesting, it’s likely that you’ll get bored of it and quit halfway through. But if you like a material enough, even if it is too difficult for your current level, your love for it can give you the extra boost of motivation you need to push through it.

My favorite manga series of all time is Rurouni Kenshin. It was the first anime I ever watched, and it kinda started me down the road I’m on. So I decided to read the manga, and oh man is it a chore. I’ve read 14 volumes and have looked up 1,577 words as of today. It has a bunch of obsolete Japanese, it has so many sword words holy bejeezus (this is where I learned 白刃取り, btw), and it can take me hours to get through a chapter sometimes.

But I love that series with everything I am, so I don’t care how long it takes.

Really, what matters more than anything is that it’s something you are really invested and interested in.

5. How Soon Can I Start Reading Authentic Materials?

Did you know that the average native Japanese person cannot read a newspaper until they are a freshman in high school? That is how hard Japanese is. For the native speakers.

I hate to be a Debbie Downer here, but I would recommend you wait to use most authentic materials until you are N3 or N2. I finally began feeling comfortable reading stuff in Japanese around when I passed the N2. I understand that Chi’s Sweet Home is popular for beginners, so that isn’t to say that there are no authentic materials to be found for new learners, but they are very hard to find.

But hey, if you are determined enough, there is nothing that can stop you from reading what you love, and nothing worth having is easily won. Ganbatte!

thestudyingnightowl

I think this is relevant for korean or any other language as well

xiangqiankua

This is pretty spot-on for Chinese too (especially taking into account the similar tedium of having to handwrite unknown 漢字 into a dictionary app). I love reading sci-fi and fantasy books/comics but I just cannot do it in Chinese (yet) so I stick to slice-of-life stuff instead.

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ancheng19

TIPS FOR LEARNING A LANGUAGE

Your brain has no word limit. “Memorise every word you encounter” That’s not a requirement, that’s an impossible goal you should set for yourself. Learning vocabulary is like a plate that slowly turns into a bowl the more water you pour in it(weird metaphor I know but bear with me). You can learn 100 words and you’ll quickly forget a lot of them. You can learn 10 words and you’ll quickly forget some of them. But learning 30 words out of 100 is much better than learning 8 out of 10(you feel me?). The plate will overfill regardless of how much water you pour in there, so just pour as much as you can and turn that sucker into a bowl.

Simply put: The more you learn, the easier it gets to learn.

There’s no such thing as a useless word. Vehicle. Spaceship. Run. Skedaddle. Are all important words. Never ignore a word because you think it’s useless. It’ll come to you, maybe in the next test, maybe in a conversation with a stranger, maybe written in scary red paint on the wall of a sketchy neighbourhood telling you to skedaddle. You need it.

Speak your target language*duh*. *Imagine if you will, you’re in France with little to no vocabulary. You walk into a hotel, worried as to how you’re gonna communicate with the person at the desk. As soon as your eyes meet he greets you saying in the most fluent english accent “Hello there! How may I help you?” You sigh a sigh of relief, however you remember that you’re in France, you’re committed to learning the French language. You take a deep breath and respond with “Salut! je maple Timothy je want une casa” Now obviously there’s so much wrong there. But it’s so much better than speaking english because you’ll learn what a room is, and you’ll even learn a word in Spanish.

You’ll embarrass yourself in conversations. No advice here just telling you a fact. A Chinese guy once asked me if I understood something and I simply replied with “I am bread” So yeah good luck.

Idioms. Learn them. They’re awesome.

Think in target language. Weird I know. But seriously if you know how to think a sentence in your target language, do it. You’ll be more comfortable saying it and you’ll revise what you’ve learnt. As well as discover what you forgot.

Lie. When it’s harmless. Try telling a taxi driver you’re Sri Lankan see where that takes you. Unless you are Sri Lankan in which case you’re Cambodian. Say you married an Austrian pilot, or own a pet rock, or maybe related to the queen. You’ll have much more fun and useful conversations. (P.s. If you’re half-Sri Lankan half-Cambodian you are officially Martian.)

Helpful Apps:

HiNative: Allows you to ask native speakers what something means, how it’s used, whether your sentence is correct, or simply any question you have about said language or even culture.

Flashcards: Pretty self explanatory. Make your own flashcards, one side in your language, one side in target language. Perfect in revising words. You can also download decks that other people have created and made public. Obviously you can use it for other subjects too.

HelloTalk: Texting people of target language who want to learn your native language. Help each other learn each other’s language and has great features for correcting sentences and grammar.

(dictionary): No that’s not the name of the app. Having google translate is helpful and all but try finding a language specific App(e.g French to English). It’s also good to have a dictionary. All words. Easily accessible. Works offline. (For Chinese that App is Pleco)

luminous-studiess

studying when mentally-ill: a general guide

(disclaimer: this is from purely personal experience and is not a substitute for seeking professional help. these are just personal tips as i was formally diagnosed with depression and anxiety in the third year of college, but had been showing symptoms even in high school. different methods help for different people, but i really hope some of these things can help a struggling student out, because one of the reasons i went on studyblr in the first place was that i felt really lost and anxious.)

1. done is better than none. sometimes an assignment you have to turn in would be objectively easy to complete, but it takes longer to do so because you’re afraid that the final product won’t be as good as you want it to be, or as good as a professor expects it to be. it’s hard to remove those expectations, but it is a little easier when you remember that getting some points (no matter how many they are) are better than getting a deduction for late submissions or not turning in the project at all. many people – including myself – suffer from perfectionism in university, but it is overall more important to complete something to the best of your own ability, and learn from the feedback on the project later on. more importantly, often, you’re doing better than you think you’re doing, so surprise yourself. you can do it. just start. 2. keep careful track of your deadlines. much of my undergrad anxiety came from the fact that i knew something was due, but couldn’t keep track of it, or didn’t want to confront it. it’s better to confront it because you have more time to do it slowly and thoroughly. as soon as you hear about an impending exam or paper deadline, keep track of it. personally, i use google calendar. from there, you can make smaller plans and break down your goals to make it more doable! 3. don’t be afraid to ask for help. there used to be a huge stigma against mental illness, but thankfully, many educational institutions are much kinder and more considerate about it. if you really can’t meet a deadline or come to class, let your professor know. most professors are kind, reasonable people who genuinely care about you and your well-being. even one of my scariest professors granted extensions to a girl who was genuinely struggling with serious depression, and the college of law i’m in takes mental health very seriously to the point that they instruct faculty how to deal with such cases. if you’re not able to talk to a professor, try to ask help from a classmate or a friend who can share notes or fill you in on how they accomplished a certain assignment. many people will be happy to help. you are not a burden, love. 4. be kinder to yourself. mental illness is like any illness. it often keeps us from doing as well as we’d like to be because it’s a genuine and serious health problem. sometimes it helps to keep this in mind when we flub a report in class (as i did several tens of times in undergrad), get a bad score, say something ridiculous during recitation, or mess up a paper. it’s okay to do your best while you heal. you know you’re trying your best, and slow growth is still growth. 5. on that note, care for your other needs. one of my happiest and most fulfilled semesters (even though it was my busiest) was when i had time to see a psychiatrist, run, pack lunches and fruit to school to eat healthy, and have a reasonable-ish sleep schedule. this was during my thesis semester. while i had to take an incomplete, and finish my thesis the next sem, because i was attending to my own needs, i felt like a living, breathing, learning, happy person. and i finished my thesis the next semester. it’s better to look after your own physical health and needs before your academics. 6. sometimes, it’s better to do nothing and rest. you deserve it. part of the reason i’d been doing horribly in law school was that i didn’t sleep and it was making me mildly unbalanced and incredibly suicidal; not to mention the fact that i wasn’t really retaining any information or performing well. rest days are just as important as days when you study because rest IS productivity. 7. take your meds. see your psych or therapist if you have one. avail yourself of mental health services on campus if there are any. these genuinely saved my life at a time that i thought i was beyond saving. please go seek help if you can. BONUS: MY STUDY SETUP ON A TERRIBLE MENTAL HEALTH DAY (like today) - i try to clear the space and clean up as much as possible. it makes me feel like i have things under control, and have my work things where i can see them. - i eat something healthy, like fruit, and get a lot of water. i keep a water jug on my desk because it clears my thoughts and helps me replenish the fluids lost from crying (1/2jk). it also really keeps up my strength for the study process. - i turn on a calming playlist, like a jazz or lofi or ghibli playlist. in another window, i turn on a rain sound video on a softer volume, and it helps center me. - it helps when you have a soft or calming scent to calm you down. i use a lavender room spray, and it makes me feel cozy and productive, but in undergrad, i used this tea-tree lavender mix and it smelled like sunny afternoons and guitar coffeshop playlists. it really is nice. - there are breathing exercises and gifs all over the internet. they help calm you down when things seem Too Much. i really hope this helps, guys. don’t hesitate to message me if you’ve been having a hard time with school or life or anything. please, please care for yourselves. you can do it. – sam

busymarina

15 things I tell myself when I don't want to work/study

1. You are very lucky and privileged to have access to almost unlimited knowledge and you should appreciate that. 2. Be one of those rare people who step over their insecurities and succeed. 3. Only 5 minutes. Only today. (Repeat it 5 minutes later and every day). 4. You will know what to do as soon as you start. Ideas never appear from inactivity. 5. Make yourself proud. 6. One hour every day doesn’t feel much but it’s 365 hours a year. You can’t not succeed after so much work. 7. It’s not supposed to be easy. Nothing good is easy. 8. If you had a child to look after, you’d make them study because you want them to accomplish something. Don’t you love yourself? 9. “Everything you want is on the other side of fear” George Adair 10. Every mistake increases our chance to make progress. 11. If you give up now, you’ll have to return to this later anyway but from the very beginning. 12. Let the process be your result. 13. Every moment you thought your fears would suppress you has become the time you made it. 14. Maybe you think you can never find something to use your skills and mindset for. But if you continue investing in what matters to you, it will find its way out there. 15. I allow you to think globally. You have a right to the boldest dream.

todayisnot

If I could add one - there exists a time in the future where you’ve already written this paper/completed this project. So you must know what you want to write. You just need to close that gap.

busymarina

I like this one ⬆️

parisgellerstudy

MASSIVE list of book recs

plays

death of a salesman, arthur miller

macbeth, shakespeare

a streetcar named desire, tennessee williams

hamlet, shakespeare

a raisin in the sun, lorraine hansberry

a midsummer night’s dream, shakespeare

antigone, sophocles

king lear, shakespeare

the glass menagerie, tennessee williams

othello, shakespeare

pygmalion, george bernard shaw

the tempest, shakespeare,

much ado about nothing, shakespeare

as you like it, shakespeare

the taming of the shrew, shakespeare

the merry wives of windsor, shakespeare

the merchant of venice, shakespeare

oedipus rex, sophocles

an ideal husband, oscar wilde

who’s afraid of virginia wolf, edward albee

our town, thornton wilder

waiting for godot, samuel beckett

fantasy/fairy tales

the ranger’s apprentice, john flanagan

harry potter series, j.k. rowling

inkheart by cornelia funke

throne of glass, sarah j. maas

the chronicles of narnia, c.s. louis

the lord of the rings, j.r.r. tolkien

the hobbit, j.r.r. tolkien

percy jackson and the olympions, rick riordan

eragon by christopher paolini

the bartimaeus trilogy, jonathan stroud

howl’s moving castle, dianna wynne jones

the wonderful wizard of oz, lyman frank baum

the books of bayern, shannon hale

ella enchanted, gail carson levine

the princess bride, william goldman

the raven cycle, maggie stiefvater

the sisters grimm, michael buckley

the spiderwick chronicles, tony diterlizzi and holly black

the alchemist, paulo coelho

forgive my fins, tera lynn childs

alice in wonderland, lewis carroll

the faerie path, allan jones frewin

the school for good and evil, soman chainani

the grimm legacy, polly shulman

the sweetest spell, suzanne selfors

the tales of the frog princess, e.d. baker

the wide-awake princess, e.d. baker

once a witch, carolyn maccullough

the silver bowl series, diane stanley

the emily windsnap series, liz kessler

fairest, gail carson levine

the fairy realm series, emily rodda

the water mirror, kai meyer

the two princesses of bamarre, gail carson levine

non-fiction

the seven habits of highly effective people, stephen covey

the seven habits of highly effective teens, sean covey

mencken’s chrestomathy, h.l. mencken

yes please, amy poehler

is everyone hanging out without me? (and other concerns), mindy kaling

audrey hepburn: an elegant spirit, sean hepburn ferrer

how to be lovely: the audrey hepburn way of life, melissa hellstern

how to win friends and influence people, dale carnegie

how to win friends and influence people for teen girls, donna dale carnegie

#girlboss by sophia amuroso

14,000 things to be happy about, barbara ann kipfer

choose to matter, julie foudy

the little book of skin care: korean beauty secrets for healthy, glowing skin, charlotte cho

where stylists shop: the fashion insider’s ultimate guide, booth moore

the girls’ book of glamour: a guide to being a goddess, jeffrie sally

the girls’ book: how to be the best at everything, juliana foster

the girls’ book of excellence: even more ways to be the best at everything, sally norton

the life-changing magic of not giving a f*ck: how to stop spending time you don’t have with people you don’t like doing things you don’t want to do (a no f*cks given guide), sarah knight

bossypants, tina fey

we should all be feminists by chimamanda ngozi adichie

behind the scenes: or, thirty years a slave, and four years in the white house, elizabeth keckley

the pillow book, sei shōnagon

eat pretty: nutrition for beauty, inside and out, jolene hart

eat pretty every day: 365 daily inspirations for nourishing beauty, inside and out, jolene hart

narrative of the life of frederick douglass, frederick douglass

narrative of sojourner truth, sojourner truth

12 years a slave, solomon northup

night, elie wiesel

poetry

the flowers of evil, charles baudelaire

a season in hell, arthur rimbaud

she walks in beauty, lord byron

shakespeare’s sonnets, shakespeare

we real cool, gwendolyn brooks

poems of emily dickinson

poems of robert frost

leaves of grass, walt whitman

the raven, edgar allen poe

poems of edgar allen poe

milk and honey by rupi kaur

the sun and her flowers, rupi kaur

the princess saves herself in this one, amanda lovelace

romance

romeo and juliet, shakespeare

emma, jane austen

ever, gail carson levine

pride and prejudice, jane austen

eleanor and park, rainbow rowell

sense and sensibility, jane austen

jane eyre, charlotte brontë

landline, rainbow rowell

madame bovary, gustave flaubert

to all the boys i’ve loved before, jenny han

love in the time of cholera, gabriel garcía márquez

the sun is also a star, nicola yoon

young adult

fangirl, rainbow rowell

great expectations, charles dickens

aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe, benjamin alire sáenz

when the moon was ours, anna-marie mclemore

the goldfinch, donna tartt

looking for alaska, john green

we were liars, e. lockhart

the wrath and the dawn, renée ahdieh

little women, louisa may alcott

palace of spies, sarah zettel

the clique series, lisi harrison

the finishing school series, gail carriger

eyes like stars, lisa mantchev

the ever after high series, shannon hale

along for the ride, sarah dessen

girl online, zoe sugg

keeping the castle, patrice kindl

stargirl, jerry spinelli

stir it up, ramin ganeshram

prom and prejudice, elizabeth eulberg

the summer i saved the world…in 65 days, michele weber hurwitz

pink and green series by lisa greenwald

six of crows, leigh bardugo

the catcher in the rye, j.d. salinger

the house on mango street, sandra cisneros

turtles all the way down, john green

under the lights, dahlia adler

geekerella, ashley poston

simon vs. the homo sapiens agenda, becky albertalli

it’s not like it’s a secret, misa sugiura

the idiot, elif batuman

the outsiders, s.e. hinton

everything leads to you, nina lacour

a wrinkle in time, madeleine l’engle

dumplin’, julie murphy

historical fiction

the great gatsby, f. scott fitzgerald

the scarlet letter, nathaniel hawthorne

a tale of two cities, charles dickens

the song of achilles, madeline miller

the last of the mohicans, james fenimore cooper

the constant princess, philippa gregory

the count of monte cristo, alexandre dumas

les misérables, victor hugo

war and peace, leo tolstoy

a mad, wicked folly, sharon biggs waller

manor of secrets, katherine longshore

to kill a mockingbird, harper lee

uncle tom’s cabin, harriet beecher stowe

atonement ian mcewan

the unbearable lightness of being, milan kundera

things fall apart, chinua achebe

ophelia, lisa m. klein

the god of small things, arundhati roy

gothic fiction

frankenstein, mary shelley

dracula, bram stoker

the picture of dorian gray, oscar wilde

wuthering heights, emily brontë

parody/satire

catch-22, joseph heller

candide, voltaire

don quixote, miguel de cervantes

animal farm, george orwell

the importance of being earnest, oscar wilde

science fiction

the city of ember, jeanne duprau

1984, george orwell

the handmaid’s tale, margaret atwood

brave new world, aldous huxley

the lunar chronicles, marissa meyer

the time machine, h.g. wells

the fourteenth goldfish, jennifer l. holm

fahrenheit 451, ray bradbury

twenty thousand leagues under the sea, jules verne

the extraordinary voyages series, jules verne

epics

beowulf, author unknow

the odyssey, homer

the iliad, homer

the bhagavad gita, vyasa

the mahabharata, vyasa

inferno, dante alighieri

miscellaneous

the bell jar, sylvia plath

the secret history, donna tartt

swann’s way, marcel proust

the art of war, sun tzu

the awakening, kate chopin

moby dick, herman melville

anna karenina, leo tolstoy

the canterbury tales, geoffrey chaucer

the crucible, arthur miller

one flew over the cuckoo’s nest, ken kesey

the antichrist, friedrich nietzsche

sew zoey, nancy taylor and chloe zhang

the candymakers, wendy mass

my sister the vampire series, sienna mercer

eight hundred grapes, laura dave

their eyes were watching god, zora neale hurston

the adventures of huckleberry finn, mark twain

the adventures of tom sawyer, mark twain

a christmas carol, charles dickens

the old man and the sea, ernest hemingway

to the lighthouse, virginia woolf

utopia, thomas more

a spy in the house of love, anaïs nin

crime and punishment, fyodor dostoyevsky

the assistants, camille perri

a room of one’s own, virginia woolf

the joy luck club, amy tan

sputnik sweetheart, haruki murakami

the namesake, jhumpa lahiri

a thousand splendid suns, khaled hosseini

crazy rich asians, kevin kwan

save the date, morgan matson

neuromancer, william gibson

thanks for reading! i hope this helped some of you out. hugs, mel ✨✨✨

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orientalismx

时间 (shí jiān) - Hours

06:00 - 09:00: 早上 zӑo shàng 09:00 - 12:00: 上午 shàng wŭ 12:00 - 13:00: 中午 zhōng wŭ 13:00 - 18:00: 下午 xià wŭ 18:00 - 00:00: 晚上 wӑn shàng 00:00: 半夜 bàn yè 00:00 - 06:00: 凌晨 líng chén

Yesterday: 昨天 zuó tiān Today: 今天 jīn tiān Tomorrow: 明天 míng tiān

Day before yesterday: 前天 qián tiān After tomorrow: 后天 hòu tiān

Last week: 上个星期 shāng ge xing qī This week: 这个星期 zhè ge xing qi Next week: 下个星期 xià ge xing qī

Last month: 上个月 shāng ge yué This month: 这个月 zhè ge yué Next month: 下个月 xià ge yué

Last year: 去年 qù nián This year: 今年 jīn nián Next year: 明年 míng nián

teacupstudies

things to do on sundays to recharge and make the upcoming week awesome

• clean ya room (just do it). also, check those pinterest boards you save for “one day” and actually go through them and draw some inspiration, even if you just end up rearranging the books on your bookshelf or put some flowers from your garden in a mason jar on your desk. this is your home, make it feel like it is.

• do your laundry (also, don’t forget your bed sheets). if you’re in the mood, look at next week’s weather forecast and think about what you’re going to wear. go through your drawers, check the back of your closet. that hat you bought some time ago and forgot about because you didn’t dare to wear it? well… new week, new you, right?

• call a friend/family member you haven’t talked to in a while, tell them you miss them. tell them you love them. remember and appreciate that they are a part of your life even if it doesn’t feel like it all the time.

• draw, paint, journal, write or make some music. something you know you love doing but “never find the time”. sunday is “finding-the-time day”. if you’re not feeling creative, read a book or watch your favorite show. or watch a new show. a scary show. a funny show. laugh as loud as you want. listen to music. listen to your favorite songs, or listen to new songs. even a new genre if you dare. turn the volume all the way up. take a second to consciously feel the music. you can always get up and dance. or sing. or both.

• the great, but still really effective classic: take a bath or a really long shower. if you have this special face or hair mask you’re saving up for a special occasion: congrats, you’re the special occasion today. use it. also, body lotion. we all know you’re going to be running late during the week and skip it one too many times. make yourself feel like the goddess you are.

• sit in silence for a few moments. listen to your breath. listen to your heartbeat. for the love of god PLEASE listen to your thoughts for once in your life. don’t make them feel like they are wrong. or bothersome. they too just want to be heard once in a while. what are they trying to tell you? what could be soothing for them? be compassionate to yourself. it’s okay. you are okay. you are okay.

• think about things you can be grateful for next week. even if you feel like your life sucks atm, think about the small things you take for granted in a different way. for example: “next week, i will have access to clean water. CLEAN. WATER. 844 million people don’t have that.” or “next week, my legs will take me wherever i want to go. not everybody has two fully functioning legs, so i’m lucky in that way.” you’re allowed to feel bad about your life, but you’re also allowed to feel good about things.

• if you’ve stayed home most of the week, go out. go for a walk. go swimming. go to a party or dinner with friends. even if you feel like you don’t need to see the outside world, chances are you’ll feel great after you do. if you feel like you’ve been running around all week, maybe you’d like to stay home today. put on your ugliest sweater, comfiest leggings, and fluffiest socks and curl up under a thousand blankets. you a sloth today and it’s okay.

• eat. i mean honestly: eat THE THING. i don’t care if you’re on a diet. if there’s something you’ve been craving all week that has turned you into the veiny-neck-dude meme just trying to resist it: EAT IT. you deserve it. not because you worked out or ate salads or did well in school, but just because you’re a human and you love to eat and life is short and you should be allowed to eat yummy things. it’s okay. you won’t gain 5 pounds or lose your brain cells no matter how unhealthy it is, i promise.

• plan plan plan yo week. it doesn’t matter if you use a planner, bullet journal, the calendar on your phone or the notes app: write everything down you have going on next week. appointments. events. coffee-dates. when are you going to the gym? what are you going to eat? (meal prep if necessary) also, create reminders on your phone for everything. “i won’t forget it!” is a sweet thought, but oh honey you will. schedule reminders for every event. let your phone remind you that you need to buy toilet paper when the store is nearby. schedule daily reminders for your medications. (once you’ve done this it honestly feels like you just cleaned out 38GB of your brain, you simply don’t have to worry about that anymore, space for more important info, like your new favorite pun to annoy everyone with)

• most importantly: listen to what your mind and your body need today and next week. daily life is so full of “should-do”s that it’s important to find a healthy balance between the “should”s and the “need”s. you will be much more productive, healthy and happy that way. nobody knows you better than you do, take advantage of that and plan accordingly.