Ah yes. Thanksgiving Break.
That half-a-week you get to miss school, sleep in, and on that special Thursday, become more stuffed than the traditional turkey on the table.
But, if your school and teachers are anything like mine, they think that the half-a-week we have off is more like a whole 2 weeks that we have absolutely nothing at all to occupy our time with, like sleep or family time. So they love to make sure we’re extra busy with some lovely ‘break homework’.
And so, with homework piled on with family duties, it can get a little (or a lot) hard to manage your time effectively. Which is why I’m here to give you some tips.
Tip Number 1-Wake Up Early
Yes yes, I know, it can be extremely hard to force yourself out of bed in the early hours of the morning-especially when you don’t have school-but when you want to have most of your day set aside for turkey eating and family time, it’s an important thing to consider.
This tip can also go for any other breaks, or weekends too. Waking up early helps in so many ways.
If you finish all your homework for the day in the morning, you won’t have to worry about anything else throughout the day and can simply relax. Obviously, this tip isn’t reasonable for everyone, as a lot of people can fall asleep really late, or simply aren’t morning people. However, you might want to consider it.
Tip Number 2- Set Daily Tasks
Setting daily tasks for every day of the break will ensure you aren’t leaving anything for the last minute, and let you know by the end that you’re all set. You can even divide up your work for only some of the break, that way leaving you some free days.
When you’re setting daily tasks, you need to make sure you’re being reasonable and setting an equal amount of work to each of the days, or else you’ll lose motivation on certain days.
The whole point is to make sure you aren’t leaving your entire workload for the last day, so putting three-quarters of your work for one day isn’t going to magically make you finish that work on that day.
If you aren’t following the first tip of waking up early, you still want to set aside a small part of your day to finish all your daily tasks, uninterrupted, not just complete it when you feel like it. Simply telling yourself you’re going to finish certain tasks on certain days will not accomplish those tasks for you, you need to commit and actually do the work.
Tip Number 3-Write it Down
Are you responsible for setting the table for Thanksgiving Dinner? Any essays you have to write for Language Arts? Articles about the History of Thanksgiving to read?
Write. It. Down.
If you write down your tasks, you’ll have visual documentation of what you have to do. You can cross off what you’ve done, highlight what’s important, and do whatever you need to do to make it look visually pleasing to you. If you’re a more digital person, then type up a quick to-do list on google docs. Then, if you’re setting daily tasks, simply write the day of the week you’re planning on working on certain items on your to-do list by the task.
Sometimes it’s hard to remember all the work you have to do, and writing it down in itself will help you remember more effectively, and whenever you aren’t sure about something, you’re to-do list will be right there.
I recommend writing your to-do list in the beginning of break, as soon as you can, so everything is there right from the start.
Tip Number 4-Work When Bored
I know what you’re probably thinking.
It’s the break, you’re supposed to be bored and relaxed, and enjoying it!
But when you have a list of homework begging to be completed, you need to take every chance you get to finish up some tasks.
So if you’re sitting down about to complain to your family one more time about having nothing to do, go do one assignment, or your daily task(s) set for the day.
It won’t take long! And once you’re done, you’ll feel better.
Leading me to my final tip for today…
Tip Number 5-Have Fun!
Yup!
I know, with all this talk about homework, you probably have a foul taste in your mouth by now.
But your productivity is going to be nonexistent if you’re grumbling all throughout the break about how much homework you have and how you don’t want to do it.
You’re still not going to school (or online meetings) and you should still relax, but that doesn’t mean no productivity.
Hope this helped!
Leave me a comment about ways you stay productive through your breaks from school.
Here’s a to-do list you can print if you’re someone who likes writing your tasks on paper.
Thanksgiving Break To Do ListSend download link to: |
Happy organizing, and Happy Thanksgiving Break everyone!
