Get your mid-quarter life in order with these tips

Stock image of person writing events in a planner. 

As you’re making your way through the spring quarter, you might be feeling a bit out of sorts or like you need to get a better handle on life and academics and all those deadlines. When it feels impossible to address everything at once, Rebecca Signore, executive director of University Academic Support and part of the Academic Resource Center (ARC) has the tips for you — here’s how you can GYLIO (or, get your life in order).

“This notion of ‘get your life in order,’ I think we have social media to thank for it because you see a lot of weekly reset videos on TikTok or Instagram, and they’re a little addictive because they feel accessible but also aspirational,” Signore said. “That’s what people respond to: ‘I can do that, and if I do that, I’m going to have a specific result or I’m going to feel a certain way.’”

Typically, these weekly reset videos on TikTok or Instagram show someone completing cleaning and organizing tasks, with their beautifully reset space ready to help them take on the week at the end. But Signore, who also leads the Center for Learning and Academic Support Services (CLASS) can help you with a reset for your academic (and co-op!) life that can help you feel that same sense of peace and focus for the week.

Signore and her team encourage students to ask for help early and often, and they love answering questions about how to access different kinds of support like tutoring and academic coaching. If you ask for help, CLASS can help you come up with a plan to get your life in order when you feel off-balance.

“This practice is something you can carry into your experience in co-op and your professional life, as you learn to anticipate what you need to do in the coming week and make adjustments,” Signore said.

So think of these tips as a weekly reset video in the written form, and next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, sit down and make a plan to get things in order.

1. Make a plan and stick to it

Pick a day that works for you — Signore said that a lot of students seek academic coaching appointments on Mondays and Fridays, because the beginning and end of the week are natural points for students to want to get their lives on track.

“The students are the ones driving the conversation and doing the hard work, so we’re there to make suggestions and ask good questions about why they're setting certain goals, and that looks different for every student,” Signore said. “Try to make this weekly reset a routine for yourself, so find a time that feels like the start of something for you.”

The other tip Signore says she and her coaches give students is to not spend all day resetting. There need to be boundaries around what you’re going to accomplish in a session, because once you realize one thing needs to be done, but not before this other thing gets started, your reset can balloon and cause you more stress. So, pick a day, and keep it to about an hour.

2. Know that you can start anytime

Getting into a routine like this is a practice — you don’t have to be perfect, and you can start at any time, not just at the beginning of a new quarter.

“It’s going to take time to become part of your routine, so ease yourself into it, but this is absolutely something you can start at any time,” Signore said. “Now, you have a better idea of how the term is going, so you have more data to work from and make decisions and adjustments. You can do some reflection and go forward with a new habit.”

While it would be great if a “get your life in order” routine could totally eliminate stress, it can still help you adapt to stress the more you get into the habits of planning, reflecting and adjusting, Signore said. If you feel organized going into a high-stress situation like an exam, you’ll feel calmer knowing you did what you could and stuck to what you planned as best you could.

“If you put focus time or work time and block it on your calendar just like you block off classes and meetings, it’s that nudge to say, ‘OK, this is important, I did this for a strategic reason and now I need to honor what I’ve planned for myself,’” Signore said.

3. Set goals for your GYLIO session

In order to keep it to an hour, you need to set some goals for what parts of your life you want to get in order, like going through your quarterly or weekly calendar and marking major deadlines or goals you want to block out on your calendar. Be measured in what you want to accomplish, Signore said.

“Then you can do some backwards planning from deadlines and anticipate where you can block off time for doing work or studying,” Signore said. “Some students will use this as time to do some reflection and adjustment from the week before and find if things are carrying over from last week’s to-do list last week to prioritize for this week.”

You can also take note if you want to schedule tutoring or academic coaching sessions, so you’re not scrambling to find a time later in the week. Signore reminds students to ask for help “early and often,” so plans can be made to address issues and make changes.

“This is supposed to help you lessen the ‘Sunday Scaries,’ not make you feel a higher level of anxiety about what's coming, which is why I recommend being clear on what you’re going to accomplish with this reset,” Signore said.

4. Don’t forget to get your physical spaces in order

Now that your calendar is straightened out, don’t forget your physical spaces. Signore recommends getting your workspace in order, too, and clearing out the books, notebooks, pens, sticky notes, chargers and that coffee cup from the other day that accumulate throughout the week.

And while it’s not your literal desktop, you should also consider taking a few minutes to deal with your computer desktop (and overflowing browser window), too. File all the things you saved to your cluttered computer throughout the week and trash the things you don’t need. Also, how many tabs do you have open right now? Be honest — no judgment here.

“If they’re open for a reason, do you need to bookmark them so you don’t have that fear of closing something important?” Signore said. “It’s a great idea to spend some time in your weekly reset to do a physical and digital cleanup.”

5. Make adjustments midweek

For a lot of students, a GYLIO session is a great way to combat the Sunday Scaries, Signore said, but there’s also value in doing a midweek reset. Sometime between your last big reset and the next one, take a shorter reset to adjust to how the week is going and hold yourself accountable for what you’re trying to accomplish throughout the week, Signore said. She likes a 30-minute check-in on a Wednesday afternoon.

“You plan to succeed and monitor your progress on the way, and then when it’s all done, you can reflect,” Signore said. “A reset gives you some concrete moments to reflect on that cycle of planning, monitoring and reflecting.”

And if your week hasn’t gone great to that point, don’t throw out the entire plan. In fact, a bad day might be a reasonable way for students to think about a weekly reset — as a way to adjust and reimagine your weekly goals.