How to Get Through a Rough Week of School

Student Life

January 18, 2022

The school year is full of highs and lows for all students. There are times where you feel prepared and confident with your studies. But, inevitably, there will be times where you feel nothing but burned out and exhausted. During a difficult week of school, you may find yourself struggling to keep up, to stay on top of your assignments and tasks. However, there are several ways to make a week feel less burdensome and difficult to get through.

Take It One Day At A Time

Though the school week as a whole may seem overwhelming, shifting your mindset to taking it one day at a time is key. The mindset of taking it one day at a time challenges you to solely focus on the task at hand rather than continuously thinking about the abundance of work you have to complete throughout the entire week. For instance, when you are completing your math homework, your mind may wander off.

Suddenly, thoughts about your sports game later in the week and a huge project you have due in English take over. This is exactly the situation you want to avoid. When you become consumed by the enormity of the week ahead of you, you will lose motivation to successfully finish your workload for the day.

Make Studying More Enjoyable

During weeks where studying takes up most of your time, getting bored is almost unavoidable. After a while of studying, you begin to feel drained and you lose all drive to keep going. But, by making studying and completing work a bit more enjoyable, long days will feel less burdensome.

Maybe joining a study group works is how you study your best. Maybe studying with a friend is the best option for you to pursue. Remaining focused on an environment you feel comfortable in is much easier than pushing yourself to complete lots of work in a space where you do not work most efficiently.

Making studying more enjoyable does not have to be difficult, and it does not have to involve others. For example, you can make studying less mundane simply by moving into a different workspace. Work with the options that you have to make completing work a bit less stressful and boring.

Save Time To Relax

After a long day of school and extracurricular activities, you come home to complete even more work. Hours go by, and you have finished most of your work for the night. Although you may have one more minor assignment left to get through, taking time, even if it is as short as ten minutes, will prove to be beneficial for not only your mental health but also your efficiency in completing your work. Sometimes, the best way to motivate yourself to get through a difficult school day is to give yourself breaks after long periods of studying.

Saving time in your day to take a moment for yourself will also serve as a reward. Throughout your day, you can look forward to the time you will have later to relax and do something that makes you happy.

Don't Be Too Hard On Yourself

It is so easy to punish yourself for tests you could have done better on. It is so easy to punish yourself for assignments that you do not fully grasp. It is so easy to punish yourself for not attaining your standard of perfection. But, what's truly hard to do is treat yourself with patience and kindness even if you are under a lot of pressure.

Remember, the only thing you have control over is trying your best on every assignment. There will be assignments that you do well on, and there will be other assignments that you could have performed better on. It is impossible to complete each assignment perfectly. Striving for perfection will only result in failure.

Prioritize Certain Assignments Over Others

With too many assignments to count left unmarked on your to-do list, you feel stuck. Am I going to be able to finish all these assignments in time? This question may pop up in your mind a few times. Prioritizing certain assignments over others is essential to getting through a tough week of school.

Let's say that your chemistry homework is for completion credit, meaning that you receive full credit for simply finishing it. However, on the other hand, a major English paper is due tomorrow. Rather than spending unnecessary time working on your chemistry homework, spending the majority of your time on your English paper is a wise choice, as the English paper will more deeply affect your academic standing.

Carefully thinking about which assignments or tests deserve more of your attention is a strategy often overlooked by many students, but it is a strategy that will allow you to preserve your good grades.

Keep Your Planner Close

If you tend to not keep track of your assignments through a to-do list or planner, you must during your hectic weeks. Managing your work well is the only way to ensure that you successfully get through a rough week of school. Assignments will, without a doubt, slip your mind.

You might forget about an important test. Your planner will make everything seem more feasible.

As a student, it is more important than anything to acknowledge that you will have fantastic weeks and tough weeks. Simply remember that it is normal to feel very stressed and that, no matter what, you will get through the difficult weeks. Rough weeks are just as significant as smooth weeks; both experiences will allow you to grow as a student.

Sophene Avedissian
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Sophene Avedissian is a sophomore in high school. She writes for her school newspaper, Spyglass, the Los Angeles Times High School Insider, and the Youth Civics Initiative. During her free time, Sophene enjoys reading, playing soccer, and spending time with family and friends.

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