In life, and especially in Poly, very few things are definite. In some semesters, we have a ton of projects and in others a lot of exams. Yet one thing is always for sure, every semester comes with its holiday. After graduating from Poly, I must say that the one thing I treasure most about being in school is the definite holidays.
It is really precious to have months set aside just to study less or not study at all. But with this great amount of rest comes great amounts of responsibility. With so much time on our hands, how can we make sure we are ready for the semester ahead? How do we spend our holidays productively?
Remember we are supposed to take a break!
We first have to examine why we even have vacation days. We are all humans, and so we are limited. We need breaks, especially if we are meant to be learning 5 days a week. So vacations are important for us! It is meant for us to stop studying and shift our focus to different things, our other passions or responsibilities. So yes we can spend some time studying, but we are meant to spend time doing more of other things as well.
Sounds easy, but anyone who has gone through a long holiday before would know that a lot of the time we end up just focusing on rest and not on other passions. I personally had my fair share of lazing around the house during a holiday. What can we do to ensure that we don’t end up just resting?
Make some goals and plans.
Setting goals is probably one of the most used pieces of advice, but it is a tremendously helpful step. Write down the things you want to achieve. It does not have to be feasible within your holidays, or even that useful to school, just write down what you want to do. Also put down deadlines where possible, if any of these are more urgent than the others.
Once everything is written down, you can then look at them as a whole and decide which ones are important and which ones are less so. Knowing their importance then helps us narrow down what we want to do first. We can now be really laser focused with our time!
After we sort these out, we can start to plan things out. We do not need to plan a full timetable (though if you are really good at it, go ahead), we just need to know roughly what we want to do throughout the day. Maybe have a few goals lined up every day.
Having a plan is always better than not having one. Oftentimes when we wake up having little to no plans, we end up doing what we are comfortable doing which, for me, includes going back to bed to scroll through my phone. We could all use a bit of direction and purpose in our holidays, at least I did.
What should I do though?
Holidays are meant for the things that are not studying, what can we actually do that make our “not study time” useful? There are many options, and not everyone will find them helpful. You know yourself best, and so you know what will help you rest and learn better. Here are some suggestions!
- Pursue a passion - For many, our passions keep us going, and being able to spend time on them can motivate us throughout the holidays and even school.
- Cultivate a habit - Habits can be cultivated after we persist in them over time. Holidays are the best time to spend more energy pushing ourselves to form a good habit
- Continue a routine - For some of us, a routine is most helpful for us. So maybe finding a job or a regular activity (like volunteering) can help us become more productive.
- Practice a skill - Maybe our course requires a skill that we don’t seem to be too good at. Taking some time to learn it could be useful.
- Learn a new skill - If learning keeps you going, then choose a skill to learn and go for it, even if only for a few months.
- Help a friend - Maybe someone needs your help learning something. Offer to teach, it can be very rewarding.
Of course, this list is not exhaustive! We are all very complex creatures and all our goals can never fit into a neat list like this.
Take it easy!
I know I spent a good amount of time giving you ways to maximise your holidays but we must not forget that holidays are essentially for us to rest. Do not be too hard on yourself if you fail to meet your goals, we sometimes just need to refocus and start again. If we find ourselves not feeling rested, maybe it's time to slow down a bit—we have more time than we think.
Holidays are a constant, even if it's shorter than we would have liked, so it is always helpful if we can use them well! I hope that for this coming holiday, you can make these small steps and just be a little bit more ready for the semester ahead. Have a productive vacation!
