The Importance of Staying on Track

By Alex Bolten

We’re all pretty busy with our weekly schedules, classes, and social lives. It’s really easy to fall behind on something or to lose track.

Personally, I’ve fallen a little behind with my homework. I keep trying to get caught up, but it seems as if things keep getting added to my to-do list. It’s not fun having to spend my weekend doing a reading that should’ve been done a week ago, or postponing my job search so that I can get an assignment finished. I’m hoping to use Spring Break as my “catch-up and get ahead” week, where I plan to get completely caught up with my work and then get ahead in a few of my classes by about a week or so.

Below I offer some tips to try and help you to stay on track, so that way you don’t end up like me.

1.     Make a daily to-do list

a.     I keep a mortar board/agenda book in my backpack when I go to campus. I have written in there every assignment that I’ll have due for the semester. This way, I know exactly what’s due when during any given week and I won’t have to dig through my syllabi.

2.     Take time for yourself.

a.     It can be very easy to get overwhelmed with your schoolwork, especially if you’re taking a lot of classes. Be sure to take a lot of little breaks while you study or do homework. It’s better to take 5-minute breaks about once every 25 minutes, as opposed to trying to sit there for 5 whole hours. You’ll find that your productivity will increase and that you’ll get done faster (but you have to stick to it!).

3.     Do the thing on your list

a.     You could either do that reading for tomorrow or go to a party. While the latter sounds more fun, the former is probably more important. It’s ok if you want to skip out on the reading to be with your friends, but just remember that you’ll have to do it eventually. And by this, I mean you’ll have to do it at a time when you’ve got other work to do or tests to study for. Bottom line: put off your assignments as seldom as possible.

It’s important that we do all of the things that we want to do, but we also have to do the things we have to do. I’m learning the hard way that “I’ll do it later” is actually not a good habit to get into. “Later” always comes, but it arrives with more things than I thought it would. Follow these tips so that you don’t end up like me, and so that you can stay on top of everything and get through the rest of the semester.