Want to make the most the 24 hour Library while keeping a good work-life balance? Follow our tips to keep your life in balance…
So, it’s finally all sorted out. The Library is open 24 hours a day and you can study at whatever hours work best for you, right?
Well, yes. The Library’s expanded opening hours offer more possibilities to put the finishing touches to that presentation or essay deep into the night when you need to. But as the deadlines start to pile up and the pressure mounts, the temptation to spend every available moment working or studying can become harder to resist. Here are a few tips to maintain your work life balance in the age of the 24 hour Library:
Take care of yourself
This may seem like a trite thing to say but with no-one telling you to go to get some sleep, a host of things to get done and the option to work through the night 10 feet from all your course reading it can be very easy to get into really bad habits (believe me I know, I’ve been there!) ultimately all the tips in this post will come back to making sure that you keep track of, and take care of, yourself.
Have a plan
When you have a bunch of deadlines to meet, it can feel as though you need to throw yourself straight in and start hammering away at things. But it really is worth taking a moment to step back, decide what it is you actually need to do, and put together some kind of plan. This doesn’t need to account for every minute of your day in detail, but at a minimum decide what hours you need to work to complete your work and when you are going to do it. This is where the Library’s new 24 hour opening times come in really useful. Not able to get in to study until late at night? No problem! Need to fit in studying at 4am? You can do that! The important thing is to make sure that you know what you want to do and when.
Make time to relax
Planning ahead has lots of advantages but one of the major ones is that it allows you to set aside time to relax. Whether that means vegging out in front of Strictly, working up a sweat at the gym or destroying imaginary goblins at the gaming table (no judgement, I regularly spend weekends dressed up as a Viking, swinging an axe around), doesn’t matter as long as it works for you. However you relax, planning a little will allow you to set aside the time for it. If you’re lacking for activities to help you wind down why not join one of the student clubs or societies and try something new?
Remember that you have a bed
With the advent of the 24 hour Library it can be tempting to engage in all-nighters to get that last paragraph ready. While the occasional all-nighter can help you get a piece of work finished when you need to (and we have some tips to make that work) you don’t want to make a habit of it. Regularly pulling all-nighters has all sorts of unpleasant impacts on your brain and can affect both your academic abilities and your general life skills. We in the Library want to make sure that you stay healthy so sleeping in your chair isn’t something you’ll be able to do either. Make sure that you go home and have a proper sleep.
Taking care of yourself while studying can be a challenge. It’s very easy to let the focus on getting work done get the better of you. Make sure that you balance the work that you need to do with time for your own activities and getting a decent amount of rest.
What are your tips for keeping a good work-life balance? Let us know in the comments!
Like this? Tweet this!
The Study Blog 