samantha

Cambridge 🤎 Dark Academia

habits i should try to avoid burnout 🍵

to varying degrees, every semester i burn out. this one may become the worst i've had in recent years if i'm not careful bc of the way i'm trying to pack my schedule. anxiety has been unexpectedly high this week and it's only week 1! 😖

🐢 self-care:

get 8-10 hours of sleep daily

daily exercise - enough to get me physically tired enough to sleep

meditate AND journal daily

give myself at least one day a week to chill (probably will be a "reset" day bc i can't just vegetable and expect my brain to not self-destruct. for now, let's try saturdays.)

more quality time with the people i love throughout the week

fresh air + sunlight when the weather isn't too inhospitable

no phone mornings (i quickly fell out of the habit but it did wonders for my mental health 😭)

🐰 time management:

set reasonable goals. don't kid yourself into thinking you can complete everything on a to-do list you doubt you can finish even half of - if you doubt, you're probably right.

take plenty of breaks throughout the day

don't procrastinate bc procrastination's consequences will definitely lead to burnout. on the days you just don't feel it, give yourself a reason to study that speaks to you. what is demotivating you? give yourself the encouragement you need to not give up.

vary the order in which you do things so your days feel like they have more variety (e.g. vary the order in which you work on different subjects every day)

The last few days before the blizzard hit in Sweden

Tuesday, the 9th of January 2023

I woke up to the dog curled up at my side and the sun painting the world bright gold - what a splendid start to a day. Nevertheless, the feeling of meh (have you been introduced yet?) has taken over and I desperately want to stay home to study instead of going to university. Please send reinforcement (motivation)!

Things on my mind

Read Dubois's text

Read Turner's text

Sketch down an essay structure

Look for secondary lit

Russian seminar

I tried time blocking tasks with pomodoro method seriously this time to accelerate my study (in Italian I'd say "to put pepper on my ass") and I must say I found it very helpful!

I managed to finish by the early afternoon the amount of work I normally do in an entire day, leaving me time to start the next history chapter. I'm also pretty happy with the quality of my study today!

While the previous times I only used the timer to focus on one long assignment, this time I did it to set a deadline or measure my tasks timewise, to correlate and visualise a bit more clearly how much I needed to do and how much it would realistically take me.

My focus time is already quite long and I have a good routine of alternating intense study hours and quick refreshing pauses, but what slows me is always considering my impending tasks only through time or extension, quite never correlating the two.

My problem has always been time management when the deadlines are still far, knowing that stresses me even more and considering the whole amount of work left scares me every time, so I end up spending more time to make strict unrealistic plans to co-opt my future self into being consistent rather than analysing and breaking through the tasks I have ahead of me to make them feel as simple and as comprehensible as I can.

Once I noticed the amount of pages I could study and write in 25 minutes, the paragraphs and chapters begin to feel way more manageable.

when i let my mind unravel, when i step deeper into the abyss, in times of such terrors, I stand gutsy knowing you would be there to assist me.