My Favorite Self Care Tips 💕

Okay ya’ll lets talk. For me, not only is school stressful, but at my college I also have to keep up my athletics and military skills. WHICH IS SO EFFING STRESSFUL. I always did really well in high school (thanks to awesome studyblrs like @emmastudies @studyign @highlightcrs @studymotivationuniversity and so on), but in college I literally feel like I never have ANY TIME TO DO ANYTHING! But instead of going insane and hating myself (which trust me, I did for a few months) I came up with a list of self care techniques that I think can be really helpful! And none of these take an entire “Self Care Day” which face it, none of us have time for So BUCKLE UP, FOLKS HERE IS @rubynerdy’s GUIDE TO QUICK AND EFFECTIVE SELF CARE:

1. GET AWAY.

College can sometimes feel consuming. You live in a small dorm room, go to the same lecture halls every day, and see the same people. I am a huge believer in getting the hell away from the campus. Even if its just going to see a movie or going to a cute coffee shop, getting away for even an hour can really clear your head.

2. SPA 10 MINUTES.

Face masks cost $0.99 sometimes and can make you feel AAAmmMAAaazZZIIiinNNGG. Simply doing a face mask, drinking some tea, and putting some fancy smelling lotion on can make you feel entirely more put together and can take all of ten minutes. Maybe even listen to some music or a meditation while you’re at it.

3. DO A FULL DENTAL ROUTINE

I am not one to floss every day, no matter how hard I try. But I find when I have 30 minutes to do a teeth whitening system, floss, brush, and mouthwash it feels so good! Clean mouth = clean life (?).

4. BULLET JOURNAL. WATER COLOR. DRAW.

All of the above I do when I’m feeling particularly down, I probably don’t have to tell you beautiful people that bullet journaling can make you feel put together. But taking the extra 15 minutes to add stickers and water color and drawings can make your week that much easier.

That’s it lovelies! Even if you wanted to do all of these things it would maybe take the entirety of a Sunday evening. Hope this helps!

Want to maintain or improve your writing skills in your target language this summer? Try this 30-day writing challenge for June: Every day, answer the following prompts in your target language (in a personal journal or in a tumblr post). Good luck!

If you participate in this challenge and post your prompt answers, make sure to tag me with #studyingsenseless or #writingchallengejune ! I’ll be doing it too :)

Assignments, final projects, try-outs, mock weeks, finals, college applications, these are what senior year is made of. Naturally, it’s the period of time when you most feel the urge to jump off a cliff. From the first week of school, I could already see the differences senior year brought to my school mates. People were starting to realize that they had to receive great marks, they had to get accepted into good colleges, they had to do this and that as ways to an accomplished future.

Over the years of being a high school student, every time there was a free period, or just any studying-free moment at school, we would watch movies, gossip, or simply be on our phones for hours. Now in every free periods, my classmates would take out these heavy-ass books that can be used comfortably as pillows and actually study. Or re-write their notes. Or revise a subject for next week’s quiz. Anything to keep them working (just curious, do these symptoms apply to all senior year students around the world?).

Since junior year were pretty traumatizing for me (thanks to student government), I had been planning all holiday to give my 110% for senior year. Long story short, I hit it off since day 1 and came out alive six months later. Although it resulted in me spending 3 days sleeping in after end-of-term exams were over, I’m really happy for having been very productive this entire term. I know there’s still 6 months left and the worst parts are yet to come, so I decided to share a few tips exclusively coming from someone *glares at myself* who did remarkably awful the previous year and somehow found a way to crawl back from death

1.       Know Where You’re Going

Getting to the very last year of high school, this is the MOST important part of surviving. Without having your long-term goal, it would be like taking down hundreds of obstacles without having a destination in mind. You don’t know where you’re going, but more monsters keep showing up on your path. Trust me, you’ll eventually get tired and stop trying midway. Losing motivation when you’re in the most vital part of your study can’t be a good thing.

Do research on the degrees you’re interested in taking, from their passing grades to job prospects. Make sure you actually enjoy the subjects needed for those degrees. For example, if you can’t stand Biology, better if you don’t consider attending medical school, and the same goes to other subjects as well.

2.       Maintain Productivity

The amount of school work you’re getting can be overwhelming, that is why you have to do them as soon as possible to prevent them from piling up. You don’t have to finish them all in one day, it’s impossible and careless. At least try to do them bits by bits until the night before due when you can go over what you’ve done and fix a few imperfections or cross-check your answers. Try doing this to multiple assignments instead of focusing on one or two assignments the entire week.

I usually bring unfinished assignments to school so I can get to work when I have free time, usually before after-school extras, or while waiting for an extra course. This way instead of going on Tumblr for hours, I’ll be figuring out math problems and (hopefully) have the homework done by ½ when the course starts.

3.       Gather Motivation

Take a look at that magnificent building, I will build tens of those once I become an architect. Have you seen the latest VSxBalmain collection? I’ll someday be working alongside Olivier Rousting .

It’s very important to keep being productive and use every free time wisely. While you’re at it, make sure to keep your motivate-o-meter at high level. Motivation and inspiration can come from anyone, anywhere and it doesn’t even have to come from anything relevant to your life goals. I usually get a boost of motivation after watching a couple videos of my favorite Youtubers (which has no correlation whatsoever to being an engineer), and I recently  got a huge inspo from reading Crazy Rich Asians. It seriously motivated me to work my ass off and be rich.

4.       Don’t Stop ‘til You’re Proud

Catch up on things you don’t fully understand. If you had a problem with certain subjects or materials, find the answers right away, don’t wait until the day before quizzes or mock tests when you will desperately need answers. Ask teachers, your friends, or our most trusty friend the internet. You can also download several applications to help you study, like Khan Academy and other similar apps. Once you put one problem out of sight, it will become easier for you to put more aside . This is what happened to me last year, I had problems understanding Chem but I refused to actually figure them out, thinking I would learn the materials later. 10 laters later, I got a 7 for end-of-semester test while my classmates received 9s and 8s.

So you have studied for this particular test and still got a bad mark. Shit happens honey, tough it up. Even while I’m writing this, I fully understand that the theory of ‘picking-yourself-up’ is much easier said than done. Give yourself some time to breathe, and start with “okay, where did I go wrong?”. Figure out the errors to make sure you’re not doing them the second time. Consider it this way: the subject has betrayed you and you’re getting a revenge. I planted this idea the very first day of senior year, the thought has driven me to never quit trying. It’s almost like Elle Woods to Warner, but instead it’s me and Physics.

5.       Get A Rest.

Senior year doesn’t mean you lose all hope of going on shopping sprees, watching the latest movies, or taking care of your Tumblr blog. If anything, I’ve watched more movies with my friends this year than I did previous years, simply because we have little time to relax so we made the most of one when we had the chance to. As long as you keep track on your to-do-list, stay discipline on your schedule, a little catch up on KUWTK won’t hurt.

Don’t push yourself to the point of falling down. Read books, paint, dance, even play games (Mobile Legend is the hype these days it’s getting annoying), anything to keep you sane and motivated. Never let the pressure of GPAs and prestigious colleges take positivity away from you.

6.       Don’t Over-Rest.

Yes, hun, I was just telling you to enjoy your senior year and now I’m telling you to not over-relax your way. Maintain a schedule, make agreements with yourself and stick to it. “At 8pm I will start on Math homework, and the rest is for tomorrow”. “I will work my butts off from 8 to 10 am then I can go on Tumblr”. “I will start on my History papers and take a rest after 2 pages”.

I’m not telling you to work 24/7 because that’s not healthy, I’m ALSO not telling you to spend all your weekend in bed and procrastinate because it would defeat the whole purpose of learning to be productive. Once you let yourself procrastinate, It’ll be easier for you to do it for the second, third, and fourth time.  Sometimes you just need to gather your will, get up and face those text books.

Well, there you go. These are all the things I have been doing to not only survive, but to do well in high school. I have been doing all these tips religiously for the past 6 months, it’s almost impossible not to feel tired or even want to just cut it off. But studying routinely makes me feel in control of what’s happening currently, what’s going to happen next, what I want to be doing in the future. So get up and let’s kick asses together.

types of study breaks for every situation

if you realize you’ve been studying for hours: grab a snack to refuel your body and watch a sitcom to refuel your brain. then back to the books.

if you’re feeling stressed out: take some deep breaths, text your friends, maybe stare at a wall for a few minutes. gather yourself.

if you can’t seem to focus: get moving and get outside. take out the garbage, check your mail box, maybe walk your dog. just get moving and get fresh air. it’ll help bring you back.

if there’s something else going on in your life and you can’t get it off your mind: write down what’s going through your head, sort of like a diary entry. it’ll help you work things out.

if you’re just mentally and physically exhausted: set a timer for 25-30 minutes and take a nap. any longer and you’ll hit REM and you’ll wake up feeling just as tired. once you wake up, get some caffeine in you.

if the material is boring as hell: find another way to study. see if there’s a crash course video online about it or draw out what you’re trying to learn in diagrams and pictures to make it fun.

if people around you won’t shut up: listen to some music. soundtrack and classical music is always good because they won’t absorb you as much as music with lyrics. white noise (like ocean waves, rain sounds, etc.) also works.

if you only half understand a concept: call/message a friend who’s not in the class and try to teach the material to them. this will help you mentally work through the material and will help you remember it as well.

some of my favorite quotes! pt. 1

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read” - Groucho Marx

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” - Bernard Baruch

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” - Dr. Seuss

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” - Oscar Wilde

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” - Haruki Murakami

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay it’s not the end.” - John Lennon

“Close your eyes and imagine the best version of you possible. That’s who you really are, let go of any part of you that doesn’t believe it.” - C. Assaad

“Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings, and emotions.” - Will Smith

Watch WHY WE PROCRASTINATE AND HOW TO STOP IT here.

We all know it, we all do it, we all struggle with it: procrastination. No matter how often we think “today’s the day”, we’ll find at least 5 excuses to skip that one point on our To-Do List - again (and again, and again). Before I will talk you through 3 easy steps on how to stop procrastinating, I’ll tell you the one and only reason why you are doing it:

You simply haven’t decided to do it yet.

Whatever it is you want to do, if you keep pushing it further and further, finding excuses and ways out, you didn’t decide. Thinking about doing it isn’t deciding. Putting it on your To-Do List isn’t deciding either, and trying to go for it until it gets uncomfortable is nothing more than a sad attempt to decide. Think about it - its actually true, isn’t it?

To ACTUALLY go for it and therefore, to STOP PROCRASTINATION, these 3 easy steps helped me heaps:

(little extra motivation: everything you include into your routine becomes a habit after one month. so it’ll get easier, and you’ll start loving it, I promise!)

Lets take going to the gym as an example:

I hope this is helping you to overcome procrastinating habits, and start moving closer and closer to your goals. Watch the full video here. By the way hi and welcome to every new follower on here, so happy about every single one of you. Feel free to message me, I’d love to get in touch with you! :)

You’ll hear from me soon gorgeous, xx

we all have days where we just c a n n o t make our brains cooperate. (i’m having one today, which is why i’m writing this post instead of doing my medical history readings!) here are some tips to help manage your workload when that happens.

do a warm up

start with your smallest, easiest assignment and work your way up to that dense 200 page reading. it might seem tempting to try to get the hard stuff out of the way first, but you will end up just blankly staring at the first page forever. instead, get yourself in a working mood by getting all your quick reading responses and problem sets out of the way first. i find that it helps to start with something interactive/less boring so that you can jumpstart yourself a little bit.

public shame yourself

go work in a public place where other people can see your computer screen. keep yourself accountable by letting other people’s judgement motivate you! (is this healthy? probably not. does it work? definitely.) you’re much less likely to hop on tumblr if you know that people walking by can see you scrolling.

change your routine

sometimes this is the easiest way to snap yourself out of a rut. if you usually work somewhere quiet, try moving to a lively coffee shop (or vice versa!) try working at a different time of day. even something as small as changing your playlist or switching tables at the library can help. sometimes you just need a different energy.

throw your phone out the window

cute anti-procrastination apps really don’t work when you’re determined to fuck around (as someone who once literally installed a whole new browser just to get around a site blocker that i downloaded, i know this for a fact) so sometimes if you have an urgent project you have to take the nuclear option. try to go completely off-line if you can and leave your phone/computer at home. if you can’t do that, delete any apps or programs that might be distracting. download your readings and look at them in a pdf viewer separate from the internet. turn your phone all the way off. if you really, really need to get something done, don’t give yourself the option to slack off.

give yourself breaks

i know this contradicts the last point, but take breaks if you need to take breaks. if you push yourself too hard you really won’t be any more productive. think of it as a modified pomodoro method - 25 minutes of straight focus is wayyyyy too long for me when i’m in an i-forgot-how-to-read mood, but doing 10 minutes of work followed by a 10 minute break is much more manageable. just plowing through when you lose focus doesn’t get you anywhere.

don’t be too hard on yourself

this is easier said than done of course, but remember that it’s not the end of the world if you have an unproductive day. there’s nothing less productive than beating yourself up about how much harder you could be working. reading one page/doing one problem/writing one paragraph is still something. treat these accomplishments like the little victories they are and you’ll have a much better mindset.