Work Smart, Not Hard

It's at this time of the semester, every semester, that we all see people walking around with blood-shot eyes holding a cup of Starbucks coffee. Now, I don't want to scare you away from Starbucks, I actually love Starbucks, but it shouldn't be a necessity to make it through the day towards the end of the semester.

Our current English project is a good example of the type of project that makes people lose their minds. In our case, however, the project isn't so overwhelming as to illicit such a response from students in the class, but if it were much larger, such a result could be expected. That's because our project combines group work with individual work and reliance on others. All those factors can lead to mental breakdowns if they were on a grand scale.

So, how do some people stay completely happy (and healthy) throughout the last few weeks of the semester? It's really simple. They work smart, not hard.

Now I feel like I have to toss in a disclaimer about the above statement (and title of this post). You should always work hard... when you're actually working. Those students that are walking around like stressed out zombies work hard, but not smart. Working smart is all about time management.

The best way to manage your time and balance all of your class project is to first write down everything that you need to do between now and the end of the semester. This list should include tangible projects that have due dates, not periods of time you need to study. Those come later. Next, you make a schedule of the times you're available to work on your projects. Then, you plot out when you're working on what. Finally, you can now add in time that you want to study in any open slots that you want filled.

Now for the absolute final step of this entire process. Are you ready for this? You actually have to stick to your schedule. Yes, unforeseen problems can throw a monkey wrench in any schedule, but if you're able to stay on task and finish your projects when you plan on finishing them, you'll find that the final weeks of every semester are much more enjoyable, and more importantly, less stressful.