Senior Summer: Get Stuff Done (August Check-In)

(Photo Credit: Flickr User sw77; Caption added by A M Montgomery 2015)

For most of us, the arrival of August is considered the Monday of summer. It’s the beginning of the end. A rude awakening of the school year to come. Why? Because it signals only one month left until school starts. And there’s still so much to do!

I have been having trouble consistently working on my summer project, fitting in an additional online course, practicing foreign language, baby-sitting, and (now) studying for an upcoming exam. If you’re like me and feeling overwhelmed, hopefully some of the tactics below can help us:

• Struggling with finishing a project? Inc. writer Kevin Daum, provides some good tips of setting micro goals and moving past the flaws in the project thus far. You can fix those later; just remember to keep working.
• Too distracted to study or practice on your own? It’s particularly hard to study during the summer (probably because you don’t have to) but there are ways to get stuff done. Join a studying community is one way. Find friends who are learning languages and add them on Duolingo so you can keep each other on track. Social media sites, like tumblr, have studyblr (study blogger) communities on tons of subjects and give great advice. One studyblr recommends breaking your sessions into 25 minute intervals and using sites like StayFocused to reduce distractions.
• There aren’t enough hours in the day! Sometimes, there really aren’t. So I hate to break to you (and me, since I have to do this too) but it’s time to start either getting up earlier or staying up later to get work done. If there aren’t enough hours, create more. (I recommend getting up earlier since it’s almost time to go back to school anyway.) If you could get better at something important to you, is that not worth exploring?

As always, a little motivation goes a long way. If you really find yourself feeling lazy, make a list of all the things you need to finish before school starts. Prioritize them by importance and then, in the margins, describe why they’re important to finish. Work on complete little tasks per day and don’t forget to reward yourself (with an hour on tumblr, a new movie, etc.) when you do complete them.

[InsertCleverPhraseHere],

Ash M. Monty

P.S. The photo above is a favorite motivational quote of mine, but there are plenty of others all over, including tons of great ones on BuzzFeed, such as this one from Grey’s Anatomy

(Source)

or even Parks and Rec

(Source)

[Imported from http://www.montysmayhem.blogspot.com%5D

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