Managing oneself (first year university students)

Whatever career one chooses to study at university, there is always a common challenge: managing oneself. And this is especially true if you leave home to study. There may be a lot of new responsibilities that you did not have before:

1. Housekeeping: doing the groceries, cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry, paying the rent and the bills,...

2. Own schedule: when to wake up, when to go to bed, when to eat, when to study (and where and with whom), to decide if to attend class or not, which activities to pursue and when to pursue them,...

3. Own psychology: self-doubt, motivation, knowing or not knowing what you want to do,...

These are just a few points. They may look stupid, they may look obvious, but we all have to reflect on them at some point or another to make our lives simple and effective. For example, there are classical tricks, like:

- Do not go grocery shopping when you are hungry; go grocery shopping with a pre-made list and buy only the items on the list; make sure that you eat healthily; if possible, make yourself a weekly menu so that the decision-making of what to cook and what to buy is easier. Do not have heavy meals for lunch or you will feel sleepy. Make sure that you drink plenty of water and that your room is aired so that you are not sleepy. Do not have heavy meals before going to bed because it hinders digestion and sleep.

- Use a calendar to make a note of all your tasks. I recommend a digital calendar. Google Calendar works very well and you can divide activities between events, tasks and reminders. Little by little you will have more and more little tasks to accomplish and you cannot keep all of them in your head. 

- Get into a routine: go to bed at a given time, wake up at a given time - typically the body needs a lot of energy to adapt to random schedules. Make sure that you engage in wholesome activities (do not just binge-watch series) - avoid watching your computer screen before going to bed if you have issues sleeping. 

- If you have self-doubts, ask for help, sometimes from peers that are more senior than you and have more perspective, sometimes from your teachers. Many of the self-doubts that you have are anchored on false beliefs.    

You see, all this has nothing to do with what you study. But it is already a challenge to know how to do this in a way that is beneficial and not harmful. The best way is not to take anything that you do for granted and reflect on it. A helpful question is: "Is this [action] benefiting me or harming me" and learn from the experience of others.