Creating Balance In Your Life

     Looking back on my senior year of college, I had a full schedule. I was taking classes full-time, volunteering, working, managed to exercise, and still had somewhat of a social life. If you are a fellow Bio major, I'm sure you're wondering how I achieved the impossible. So, for this post, I want to share my tips to creating a balanced life and getting things done.

Step One: Organization

     In order to get things done efficiently, you'll have to have a plan. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I am a total planner. I can probably take it a little too far at times, but it works well for me. So, I do what I know. For me, my planner was set up in two major sections, the monthly view and then the weekly view. For the monthly view, I wrote down all of my major events (ex: birthdays, exams, due dates for papers/projects, meetings, and work hours). This way, I could look at my monthly view and then assess which weeks would be busier than others. For my weekly view, I would break down what was going on for that particular week. Here, I would write down smaller assignments as well as the major events that were going on. Another feature for my weekly view was my weekly post-it ( I'll talk more about my weekly post-it in a later section). My week view was pretty much my reference point for when I needed to get things done and it helped me to keep things moving along. If I was having a particularly busy week, I would sometimes break down my days into hourly sections, so I could visualize how much time I had and how I could use it. Now, you don't have to go into that much detail, but I would suggest having a general framework for your time. Knowing what you need to do and when you need to do it, will help you be more efficient.

Step Two: Prioritize

     So now that you have an idea of what needs to get done, you need to decide what is most important. On my weekly post-it, I would write down my tasks for the week in order of importance. This would help keep me from wasting my time on the paper that was due next week when I still had an exam to study for this Friday. There were some exceptions to the post-it, but in general, I tried to stick to it. Also, when glancing at my monthly view, If I saw that my week was manageable, I'd accept invites to social things. If I knew I had two quizzes, a meeting, a test, and a paper due the following week, I would stay in that weekend. There were occasions that I had to break this rule (i.e. it was my bestie's birthday), and during those weeks I tried to get as much as I could possibly get done Monday-Thursday. This wasn't always smooth sailing, but hey, that's life. 

Step Three: Use Your Time Wisely

     In general, I had a pretty good layout of what needed to get done when, but sometimes I'd randomly have little pockets of time and I'd use these to work on my post-it list. Even if I couldn't finish an entire task, I would at least try to do the ground work, so that when I went to do the actual work, it would be easier. Another thing that I would do was to make use of travel time. For my school, I was fortunate that I could rely on public transportation to get to places ( for me that meant getting from campus to my workplace), so I would make use of my travel time by going through flashcards or through some of my notes.

Step Four: Know When To Deviate

     I am all for being organized, but for me it is also super important to be able to live a balanced life, and a major part of that is knowing when it's okay not to stick to a schedule and go with the flow. Sometimes, I'd have a pretty set schedule, but something would come up and I would deviate from what I planned. Something that comes to mind when I think of this is a time that I had planned to go home after work on a Saturday so that I could work on some homework but instead, I took up a last minute invite to go see a movie I had wanted to see. When my friend asked me earlier in the week, going out on Saturday seemed like it would hinder my academic goals. But when she asked again on Saturday, it was totally doable. Also, there were certain days that I would just use my work commute to de-stress. Realize that in order to work like a well-oiled machine, you need to be human. If you're having a rough day, take a break to just breathe. As you get to know how you work, you'll know how to do this while still achieving your goals.

Step Five: Accept Imperfection

     I like to think of myself as an imperfect perfectionist because on some things I settle for good enough instead of obsessing over every detail. Working in this manner has helped to keep me sane and from stressing over things that I shouldn't. Of course, take things seriously, but realize that it won't be the end of the world if something doesn't get done exactly the way that you wish you would've. Were there times that I wish I would've done things differently? Yes, but I also tried to balance things the best that I could at the moment, and that was good enough for me.

     To all my pre-meds (and also non-premeds), I hope this post helps to guide you along a bit and also gives you some motivation to push through whatever you need to get done. I hope you have a fabulous weekend and I shall be talking to you soon!

~Genesis<3

     

How to Make the Most of Your Semester

     Spring semester should definitely be in full swing for those of you still in school (yeah, that'll be me too next year). So, I thought I'd share some of my tips to make sure that you get the most out of the semester and close out the year with a bang.

     For me, I'd say Senior year was the year that I had the whole college thing figured out ( It only took me three years, but whatever...), and I found myself feeling pretty balanced with what I needed to do, which was a lot. But, I'll definitely be the first to admit that by Spring Semester, senioritis was starting to kick in, so I needed to keep myself focused in order to make sure that I finished my college career kicking butt and taking names. Below are a few tips that helped me.

Become BFFs with your syllabus

     Not even going to lie, Syllabus week was one of my favorite weeks of college. Not only because we had a couple of classes where all the professor did was talk about the course, but because we got the schedule for what was happening in the semester. This meant that I could promptly head back to my apartment, whip out my planner, and write in all the important dates ASAP. Although you might not be a planner nerd like myself, I highly recommend doing this. It is really great to be able to know what your overall semester will look like and what the workload will be. It will also allow you to see what weeks will be the busiest and which ones you can have some fun. Mainly, I'd recommend putting in due dates, test dates, quizzes, and projects. If you want to write in what will be covered in your classes each week, that could be helpful too, but I never really did that as professors don't always stay on track with the scheduled topic.

Schedule in your activities

     Of course, this mainly means your extracurriculars but for me, it also meant my gym time. From my previous post, you know that I used to fit three runs in per week. So, what I would do at the beginning of the semester was figure out where in my schedule I could fit in the time I would need to run and make that my designated run time so that it was easier to stick to. Another thing that would be beneficial would be to block out your study times. I worked my last two semesters of college, so this meant that my weekly schedule could vary. But, at the beginning of each week, I would see what my week was going to look like, and I would designate where I could fit in the bulk of my studying.

Prioritize

     One of the most important parts of being productive is definitely learning to be strict with yourself. I know there were weekends when the last thing I wanted to do was spend quality time with my biochem book, but if it needed to be done, it needed to be done. This also goes back to my first point. You'll know which weeks this will be particularly important, so try to not schedule anything unnecessary into these weeks.

Plan Ahead

     If you know next week is going to be a hell week, try to get as much done before then. This will relieve a tremendous amount of stress for the weeks that you have two papers, a quiz, and an exam all in the course of a couple days. Even if you can only get the foundation work done, you'll be greatly thanking yourself.

Be Flexible

     I'm sure that you are well aware that life happens. Sometimes you have to make the time to go see a professor, or to help a friend, and you definitely didn't plan on it. That is perfectly okay. The most important part of organizing yourself is realizing that it is all just a framework and that you should use it as a guide, but also go with the flow adjusting yourself as necessary.

Remember to Have Fun

     I know that if you are anything like me, you will want to be able to do it all. But in the process of being awesome, know that it's perfectly okay to have fun. College is one of the best times of your life, so enjoy it all that you can! I know that now that I'm out of school, I am so happy that I took out the time for all the impromptu meet ups with my friends, or just occasionally breaking from my schedule to do something fun. It will help you feel rejuvenated and also more likely to stick with your plan overall. So, don't be afraid to have your occasional Netflix day. Grey's Anatomy on, my friend.

     I hope these tips were helpful for you! I know these are pretty standard, but it was what I used and it worked out pretty well. I hope you've been having a great week and I'll talk to you soon!

~Genesis<3

     

Day Designer and Blue Sky Collaboration Planner Review!

Naturally as a very goal oriented pre-med student, keeping a planner has been a tool that I have kept in my toolbox for quite some time now. For me, a planner allows me to organize all the tasks I have to get done for the week, and also serves as a place I can come back to when I need inspiration.


I was very excited when this little gal came out as I had been eyeing the original day designer ( It is absolutely gorgeous! You can find it here!) for quite some time, but I honestly couldn't justify spending the $57 to purchase it, especially when I knew that my schedule wasn't going to be quite as busy to necessitate a daily planner. When I found out that Day Designer had done a collab with Blue Sky and would be selling planners at Target, I couldn't wait to get my hands on one. The planner line had several different options to choose from. Some of the planners were similar in design to the original Day Designer ( in size and layout), but I decided to go with this smaller one as it was less expensive than the larger one and would be easier to carry around. I believe I paid around $12.99, which isn't too bad when compared to the original $57 price tag, and it would allow me to test out the layout before committing to purchase it for the school year.

The Layout

What sets this planner apart from other monthly-weekly planners is that instead of breaking down the week into two pages it has a page dedicated to each weekday of the month ( weekends are set up differently) allowing for quite a bit more space to organize yourself compared to other planners.  This layout style piqued my interest as when I kept a traditional monthly-weekly planner, I often found myself writing out my schedule on a list pad as there wasn't enough space to jot down in my planner.

Similar to other planners, the planner has a monthly view at the beginning of each month's section. This is a nice little place to do an overview of the month and it is where I like to keep track of my work shifts as well as jot down major events that will be happening during the month.

 For each weekday, the planner features a daily view which gives you a nice amount of space to organize yourself for the day. I like to use this page to do a rough layout for my day and jot down a couple things in the to-do section that I'd like to accomplish.

For the weekend, the planner combines Saturday and Sunday on one page and eliminates the to-do section. I'm not particularly fond of this feature ( I'll touch more on that later), but it does make sense for other people on how they set it up.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• I did like the Schedule feature as it is something that I like to give me a general idea of how much time I have during the day.
• The design is really cute and for the price point it has held up incredibly well!
• The quotes! I am a huge fan of inspirational quotes, so the fact that every day has a new one to reflect on is a pretty cute feature.
• The gratitude section. I think it's really nice to be reminded to take the time to reflect on what you are grateful for, and I think it helps to promote positivity in your day.
• At the beginning of the planner, there's a little section to jot down goals and do a reflection about yourself. I think this is pretty neat as it helps to promote productivity and self-awareness.

There's a lot of space! If you are the type of person that must write everything down, you will love this planner. The daily page makes it seemingly impossible to run out of space ( in my opinion at least haha).

Cons:

• Too much space. For the people that need the space, I'm sure it's a lovely feature, but I don't tend to jot down too much during the day. Honestly, the excess of space might be because my current schedule is lax in comparison with a school year schedule.
• The daily style. As a visual person, not having the week laid out on two pages wasn't my favorite because it didn't allow me to get a feel for what my week looked like. I'm sure that sounds a bit silly but for me having a mental picture of my week allows me to organize myself a bit better.
• Weekend layout. I am not a fan of not having a to-do section on the weekend page. I would've at least like to have had a couple lines where I could right down a few tasks that I hoped to get done over the weekend.
• Decorating would be pricey. Currently, I just add some washi to the daily pages to add some flair, but if I wanted to add more decoration it would add up quickly.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I'm glad that I tested the planner out. It allowed me to see whether or not I would like the layout style without haveing to break the bank. Would I repurchase? eh, most likely not. Althought the original is beautiful, the planner offers way too much space and it would definitely go to waste. I might reconsider once I start med schoool and I see what my planning needs are, but for now I personally would hold off. I am definitely going to finish using it, but I'm thinking afterwards I might go for the personal planner (check it out here!).

I hope the review was helpful, and might have helped in the decision of what kind of planner to try.

~Genesis<3