While I was sitting down staring at my 2018 goals in my bullet journal, I noticed so many of my hopes for the year are related to mental health. I thought I would do a blog post about why it’s important to focus on your mental health in the new year, and why I’m glad I started focussing on it in the last couple years. Make sure to read my last post, Simple Ways to Stay Grateful in 2018, because staying grateful and thinking of everything that makes you happy helps with mental health, too!
Start the day doing something you love instead of reading or listening to the news
Go to sleep early(er)
Follow Twitter or Instagram accounts that make you happy
Talk it out
Go outside more
Don’t be afraid to be selfish
Staying on top of your mental health means something different for every single person, and it’s something that’s always a work in progress, so don’t get discouraged if you’re going through a rough patch. It’s just important to do what’s best for you, and there’s absolutely no shame in reaching out if you need help. In fact, it takes a lot of courage to do so.
When I was reflecting back on 2017, I wished I had somehow kept track of everything I was grateful of throughout the year, and everything that made me happy. Looking on Pinterest, I saw so many different people who had done this and all the posts they did when looking back at those memories, so I decided to do just that in 2018.
Over the summer, I did a small version of this, and it was great to think about all the positive things that happened, but I didn’t set one up for the fall because I was so busy, and I stopped intentionally thinking about the positive everyday. Since one of my goals for 2018 is to stay more positive, I am making it a point to reflect on things that make me happy, and all that I am grateful for. These past few months have been filled with too much negative both in my personal life and in the world around me, so I’m going to take my attitude into my own hands, and focus on the good. I realize this won’t ‘fix’ my bad days, but hopefully it’ll make them easier to handle.
Make a special page for it in your journal or planner
Fill a jar with little notes
Make notes in your phone
Take photos of happy memories
Mental health is a hot topic among college students – mainly because so many struggle with keeping up with it. College is a super exciting time, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed when it starts to get busy. In order to avoid all of that, here are…
….five tips to get the year started right and stay on top of your mental health!
1. Make sure you have a planner or organizational system that works for you
2. Get enough sleep!
3. Have a relaxing outlet
4. Spend time with people who make you happy
5. Get outside
Succeeding in college isn’t only about getting good grades, studying for tests, and doing homework; it’s also important to make sure you’re staying creative and living holistically. It’s easy to get stuck in the rut of studying for classes and getting stressed out, and not having a creative outlet to destress. Personally, I think it’s really important to remain creative throughout college to give yourself a break from all of the busyness, but when you make it a priority it gets easier.
Here are 5 tips on how to be creative in college:
1. Prioritize your time so you have plenty of it to be creative
2. Have a couple of art supplies with you at all times
3. Give an artistic flare to your notes
4. Make art with friends
5. Keep an eye out on Groupon for art classes
I remember one of the scariest parts before leaving for college freshman year was making sure I had everything I needed. I made multiple lists, pinned a ton, and still ended up forgetting things. My mom is the ultimate packer, though, and got the things I forgot (thanks mom!) luckily. My dad, of course, gave me such a hard time about having a lot of stuff, but hey I was prepared for anything. The feeling of forgetting something doesn’t ever go away from me, but once I made a master list of all that I would need for my dorm, I felt a lot better.
Since I found the list so helpful, I decided to make a digital copy for you guys, so you can use it yourselves! I found packing lists on Pinterest to be really useful, but I wanted to make one with all the things I know that I ended up using after Freshman year. Now a senior, I feel like I have the packing thing down pretty well and know what I’ll end up needing!
Below is both a photo and PDF version of the list I made – print it out and use it how you’d like!
I didn’t want to stop there, though, and wanted to give you some tips on moving in, since a lot of people will be doing that soon and are feeling the stress that moving brings! College honestly just feels like a constant state of moving, and I actually just moved myself into my friend’s apartment for the summer, and I’ll be moving into my new apartment in September. Yay moving!!! (I’ve come to hate it so much). Since I’ve been moving so much these past couple of years – in and out of dorms, and my family moved about a year and a half ago – I want to share what really helps me.
1. This may sound obvious, but make sure you stay well hydrated and fed.
Moving is already terrible enough – add in thirst and hunger and you have a recipe for disaster. I will be the first to admit that I get hangry, so for the sake of my family I try and have snacks available so no one (me) starts getting unnecessarily angry. It’s also the worst when you’re super thirsty and having to do a bunch of manual labor (moving is hard!), so make sure you have plenty of water. If anyone is helping you move, it’s also nice to make sure they have food and water!
2. Wear comfortable clothes and shoes.
While moving, you are going to get hot and sweaty. There’s really no getting around that, unfortunately. To help with this, make sure you wear clothes that will let your skin breath, and won’t be super uncomfortable when you’re having to bend down a lot and pick up boxes and move random things. I also can’t stress how important it is to wear comfy shoes! I made the mistake of wearing a newer pair of sandals that I thought were really comfortable but ended up being a little bit too big, so once my feet started getting a little sweaty (hey, it happens), I got a blister on my heal from the friction. By the end of the day, my feet were absolutely killing me, and all I wanted to do was soak them in hot water.
3. Enlist help
Beg, plead, and bribe your friends and family to help you move. It’s hard work, and you’ll be glad you have the help. Like I said earlier, offer to buy them pizza, coffee, or their favorite food to get them to help you. My parents and boyfriend are the sweetest and graciously helped me move, and I know a lot of my friends ask their family to help, too.
4. Start packing well before the move.
I try and not procrastinate on things, but since I hate packing and moving so much I always wait too long to do so. I packed up my apartment a couple of days before I moved, and ended up staying up till, like, three in the morning and moved the next day. Don’t do this! Learn from my mistakes! Start packing a week or two in advance, depending on how much stuff you want to bring to your dorm. Try and make it as easy as possible on yourself, even if you hate packing like I do. I’ve definitely learned my lesson, and since I know I’ll be moving again soon, I haven’t unpacked a ton of my boxes because I know I’ll just have to pack up all of the stuff again.
5. To help with packing, go through your stuff and get rid of anything you don’t use.
I still need to do this, because as I was packing I realized I have a lot of junk that I really don’t need. I especially need to go through my closet, but being at college is weird because you have some stuff at home, and some stuff at your closet at school, and it’s all kind of a jumbled mess. To lessen the load, though, it really helps to go through your stuff and get rid of unnecessary items that you know you won’t be using at your dorm. You can donate the stuff to places like Goodwill, and someone down the road will use it!
6. Label what’s in your boxes, with a lot of detail.
I like to label my boxes with as much detail as possible, and list a lot of what’s in the box. Oftentimes I’ll label bigger items that are in there so I’ll hopefully remember what all I ended up putting in the box. This really helps for the unpacking process so you know where to put which boxes, and so you don’t end up losing anything. Also, it’s really helpful to know if you won’t need to open a box as soon as you get to your dorm, so you can save some time unpacking and spend it getting to know people on your floor, instead.
7. If you can, use a cart or dolly of some sort to move boxes.
Again, this is fairly obvious, but sometimes you have to reserve a moving cart or dolly in advance, so it’s important to keep in mind! Having one of these is really useful and makes the unloading part of moving go a lot smoother and quicker. Alternatively, if you or someone you know has a dolly, definitely ask if you can use it because it makes it easier to move boxes around quickly, and they’re of course a lot lighter to move.
8. Keep your clothes on the hanger and just bag them up.
This is super nice because you can quickly hang them back up in your dorm closet, and you don’t have to waste time folding and unfolding clothes. I did this my freshman year, and I’ve been doing it ever since!
9. Coordinate with your roommate(s) about move-in dates.
If you aren’t already assigned a move-in date and time, make sure you talk to your future roommate and ask them when they’ll be moving in. This is just nice so you know if you should go earlier or later to avoid two people trying to move in at once, each with a ton of boxes. My roommate was assigned an earlier move-in time, so it was really nice to not have to worry about running into someone else moving boxes at the same time.
10. Keep any decorations you’ll want to use soon handy.
I didn’t do this my freshman year, and I really wish I had at least kept my photos handy. I ended up feeling really homesick the first couple of days so it would’ve been really nice to have photos of my friends and family handy. If you know what sort of decorations you want to put in your dorm, make sure to keep them on the top of a box, or somewhere that’s really easy to get to so you can start making the place feel like home! It’s important to do this soon, especially if you’re a person who gets homesick really easily.
Alright, those are my tips on moving into your college dorm, and a packing list! I hope this post was helpful, and that it eases your nerves just a little bit. I remember how I felt freshman year, and it really helped to know I was prepared to move in. It’s crazy that it’s already August, and that people are going to start moving into their dorms soon!
Also, check out the video I did of this below!
I hadn’t known that bullet journals were not only planners, but actual journals as well – silly, I know. I personally have (or had, now) a planner, a separate journal for my thoughts, and another journal for goals/ideas. Obviously I couldn’t carry around all three, so I’d usually just carry my planner around with me. My phone is full of notes and ideas since I didn’t always have my “ideas” journal with me, so it would result in a lot of lists later that I couldn’t really make sense of.
With my bullet journal, I can have designated pages that are solely for lists and ideas, or anything else I’d like to put in there. I really like the creative freedom you can have with bullet journals, and that you can follow the system loosely and make up your own rules. I’ve found it’s been great to sit down on Sunday afternoon and figure out the week ahead, and see what all I have to do. It’s quickly become a part of my weekly and daily routine to set up the week on Sunday and get ready, and then come back after work and update my journal.
Another part I love about bullet journaling are the different “trackers.” Currently I have a habit tracker and mood tracker, and I think next month I’ll add in an expense tracker, too. Visually checking in with my goals for the month and year has been helping so much in keeping myself accountable, and it’s cool to see them fill in. I love filling in those little boxes, so it keeps me motivated, too! This has also been great in setting realistic goals, and also seeing where I can push a little more to set a higher goal.
So far I’ve been keeping my journal relatively simple, but I’m excited to become more creative in the future. I love drawing and painting, so my bullet journal will be a great place to be able to do that in, since I don’t have a whole lot of time to dedicate to that. I really love how you can get super creative and elaborate with bullet journals or keep it simple if you like!
The future log is really important for your bullet journal, because it allows you to see the year at a glance and write in important events. So far I’ve mainly written down birthday’s and holiday’s, but as time goes on there’s more and more to put in the log. I added little doodles for each month to give it some personality, too!
Put in any yearly logs you want, or anything else you’ll want to come back to a lot
These are some of the supplies I’ve been using
This post contains affiliate links.
Stress, anxiety, and depression affect so many people, and it’s extremely prevalent in college students. I’m sure if you’re a college student, or have been before, you completely understand why. Between classes, homework, studying, and trying to have fun, it’s easy to not make your mental health a priority. Going into college, I definitely underestimated how much stress I would be under and how it would affect me. I’ve always been a pretty anxious person, but college definitely made it a lot harder to deal with.
Through all of this, though, I learned how to become stronger, and how to calm myself down when it all gets to be a little too much. I also learned how important it is to make sure you are not only physically healthy, but mentally healthy. Mental health is something that more and more people are talking about, but there’s still stigma surrounding it, especially when many college students want to appear as if they are just fine at balancing everything in their lives. It’s also really important to talk about right now with the popularity of 13 Reasons Why!
In my new series, How to Succeed in College, I knew I wanted to do a post all about mental health, so here it is! I’ll be giving you my tips on how to make sure your mental health isn’t suffering, and how to not let the stress of college get to you too much.
You can also watch my video about it here!
As I’m sure you know, I am a junior in college, and lately it feels like it’s flying by. This year I have felt a definite shift in how busy I am and the work load I have for classes; things are starting to get serious, and while it’s very scary, it’s also pretty exciting. I’m starting to figure out what I want in life, and I feel like I’m finally getting a feel for balancing my life with everything that is in it – classes, work, clubs, and a social life. Because of this, I thought it would be fun to do a whole series about it on my blog, especially since there are a lot of people starting to think about their first year in college in September!
For the first post I’ll be talking about how to balance your schedule, especially if you have a part-time job and want to have time for studying and having fun. It can be difficult, but it can definitely be done. Here’s a couple of tips on how to get done, and what I do to keep my schedule balanced!
1. Get a planner and write in it religiously.
I’m sure you’ve seen those people in your classes who whip out their planners anytime the professor mentions any sort of date, but let me tell you, those people are ahead of the game. During my junior year of high school I started using my planner more, and once I got to college I made it a point to write everything down in it, because it helped me figure out the times I would be working, studying, going to class, or hanging out with friends. It can be difficult to remember to write everything down in your planner, but once it becomes a habit, you won’t think twice about writing all your important dates down in it. I also like to sit down on Sunday or Monday and write down my work schedule and any other time commitments in my planner so I already have those dates in my head and I don’t forget anything. This also makes it a lot easier to figure out the free time I have to have fun!
2. Additionally, make a to-do list for the week in your planner, or another notebook.
Whether those involve homework goals, errands you have needed to run for weeks now, or groceries you need to buy, this is super helpful for getting things done. It can be so easy to forget to get tasks done in college because you’re extremely busy, but I find doing this helps to make sure I don’t accidentally miss a due date for a class, or get swamped in random things I’ve needed to get done for weeks. This is also great to write down anything you need to get done for work, or anything you can do in advance to help clear up your schedule later.
3. Dedicate a certain amount of time to each part of your life.
Blocking off time for things like studying, doing homework, or having fun can be extremely helpful for balancing all areas of your life. This helps break your life up into a routine that will get more and more natural over time, so you’re able to do all of the things that you want to do, while still getting the things you need to do, done. For me, I make sure I spend the time I have between classes doing homework, and if I don’t have any to do, I will usually call my parents to make sure they know I am alive and well. I also usually have a lot of time during work to study (it’s a campus job, so it’s more geared towards students, which is really nice!), so I know that I’ll get a lot of that done during my shifts throughout the week. After work I give myself some de-stressing time, and will usually watch something like Friends or Parks and Rec – something that doesn’t need a lot of attention. It’s so important to give yourself these structured times to get things done, that way you know you’ll have time to give yourself a break both mentally and physically.
4. If you’re looking to get a job, try and find a campus job.
Getting a campus job is super helpful for students, because oftentimes your boss understands that sometimes you’ll have to have a shift covered due to class conflicts, midterms, or just needing more time for studying. My boss gives us all dead week off in order to have ample time to study, and so we don’t have to worry about devoting too much time to work rather than doing homework and such. This really helps alleviate stress during a usually high-stress time, and it’s great to be surrounded by other students who also understand, and can cover a shift when you need it. Also with campus jobs, usually you have lots of time to do homework and study during the shifts, because they’re usually desk jobs, secretary work, or front desk/welcoming positions. This makes it easy to get two things done at once – you’re able to work and earn money while also getting work done for classes.
5. Communicate your class schedule to your boss clearly and early – school comes first!
Around the time of registration, my boss asks for all of the class schedules of the student employees in order to make sure there are no time conflicts. She understands that school comes first for all of us, so she wants to help us have the time to not only have time for classes, but work and still be able to finish all of our homework. It’s really important to communicate to your boss the time that you know you will not be able to work, rather than telling him or her later on that you can’t come in for a shift. No one likes it when a person cancels suddenly, because all of your coworkers have to scramble in order to get the shift covered, and there isn’t always someone who can cover the shift. If you have any other time commitments, like club meetings, make sure to also tell your boss so you know you’ll be able to go to those.
6. Hold yourself accountable.
Don’t slack off on homework time, or sacrifice it constantly for hanging out with friends. Yes, being social is important for your mental health, but if you find yourself always having fun and slacking off on classes, you have a problem. It’s important to always put school first because you’re there to get an education, and are most likely paying a lot of money for it. If you want to spend more time with friends but still get work done, you can have study dates, go to the library with friends, hang out at a coffee shop while studying, or hang out at one another’s houses/apartments in order to do homework together. Doing this can actually motivate you to actually do homework, especially if you’re surrounded by people who are getting work done as well.
7. But also understand that sometimes you just need a break.
At the end of the day, it’s really important to check in with yourself and see how you’re doing. If you feel like you’re absolutely drowning in tasks, or are feeling extremely overwhelmed take a break. This can be hard to do when you’re super busy, but it can make you feel better mentally and physically, so in the long run it’s highly beneficial. When you feel good, you can do good. Take a nap, take a bath, read a good book, or watch some Netflix in order to de-stress; give yourself the time you need to recuperate, so that you’re able to go back and tackle homework and other tasks with full energy.
Alright, those are my tips on how to balance your work, classes, and fun! It’s important to do this to stay both happy and healthy, but it can be so hard in college. I hope these tips helped, and that you’re able to figure your schedule out!
I was sitting in class today and realized that it’s already week four of my university’s quarter. Being on the quarter system means that everything moves so quickly, but the fact that it’s already week four is so scary. Surprisingly, I have found myself to be really motivated this term, which can be hard during winter quarter since it starts out in January, the low point after the high of the holiday season. I’m actually really enjoying my classes so far, so that’s probably a huge part of it.
Happy 2017!
Alright, well there are five tips on how to achieve your 2017 goals! I’m so excited to see what this new year has to offer, and let’s hope that it’s a lot better than 2016!
I wish you the best of luck!