What to do with your time between exams and results? | Ideas to be Productive | Effective Time Usage Tips
Do we not always catch ourselves complaining about how less 24 hours seem to be to do all that needs to be done in a day?
How to make the most of the time we have?
But do we really know how to manage our 24 hours?
Are we really short on time?
There was a point in my life when my to-do list used to overwhelm me. I did not know how to squeeze in everything in a day and on most days, I actually ended up doing nothing and just worried myself to sleep.
When I decided to appear for entrance exams in the beginning of 2020, all other thoughts and goals took a back seat and there was not much to think about. Life was all about putting in the effort towards a singular goal. My energy was being directed to work towards achieving my target and that streamlined a lot of things for me. Now I had a single purpose of acing the entrance exams and that helped in eliminating frivolous thoughts or digressing my energies to multiple things.
However, little did I know that as soon as I get done with my exams, the feeling of emptiness will cloud me in a way that I would struggle to go through each day. There was a long wait that I had to endure between my exam and the final results and this waiting period was getting on my nerves.
I am slightly impatient and the fact that I do not have anything productive on my agenda for a considerable time period of a couple of months troubled me a lot more than I thought it would. My days were unsettled with the anxiety and restlessness about my exam results and my nights were spent hating myself for simply passing time without any agenda for the next day.
I loathed myself and felt like a loser.
Personally, I feel that the biggest learning from any challenge in life is the realization that you hold the power to make a change. It is a feeling of achievement that if something is troubling you, you are actually powerful enough to turn it around. I felt that when I decided to do something about how I was feeling about myself. There were a list of changes I made in my lifestyle and activities I took up to keep myself occupied. It helped me immensely, so I thought it might help some of you too.
1. Reading Books
I have always been an avid reader. Since the time I started preparing for exams, I had to substitute my preparation for my reading time. Hence, I made a list of all the books that I wanted to read and made it a goal for myself to finish all of them before my results. If you are not much of a reader, you can develop a reading habit in this time. You can start with newspaper and then elevate to additional fictional and non-fictional books to learn about your preferences. Reading is an excellent hobby as it widens the horizon of your knowledge and keeps you entertained at the same time.
2. Watch Movies
This is a golden period to watch or maybe even re-watch all your favourite movies and TV shows. Media is an excellent way of brushing your pop culture knowledge. If you ever felt left out of a conversation between friends because they were talking about a movie or show you have not had the chance to watch, this is your time to catch up on it. Who knows, may be you can up end up being an active member of the Marvel versus DC debate club?
3. Regular Exercise
This is a habit that I have been trying to inculcate in my daily life. 30 minutes of exercise everyday is essential to keep one's body healthy and give a break to one's mind. You can experiment with different forms of exercising and pick what works for you. In a matter of few months, you can work to develop a daily habit which would reward you for life.
4. Take up an Internship
There are several online platforms that are providing paid and unpaid internships to students who are looking for some part time work to polish their skills and maybe even make some money on the side. So if you wish to add some internship certifications to your resume, you can check out the online platforms of internshala, letsintern, makeintern etc. If you do not wish to sign up for a committed internship then you can check the platforms which provide work to freelancers and pitch your skills to them. Freelancing would help you to use to skills in this time and build a portfolio of work.
5. Catch up with friends
Everyone is aware how demanding it can be to attempt national level entrance exams. It often involves focused preparation for a long period of time and that leads to reduced outings. So use this time to catch up with your friends. Although, I would advise you to take all precautions before stepping outside in 2021 and abide by the guidelines.
6. Blogging
If you are looking to develop writing as a hobby, then blogging is a great way to add accountability to your effort. Blogging provides you an audience and continuous effort is required to create an engaging blog. Blogging and finding and audience for your blog constitutes as important skills under social media marketing and content creation. This skill is highly demanded in the modern markets, thus it becomes an attractive option to give your time to.
7. Share your Knowledge
If you have been sincerely preparing for your exams, there must be a lot of new things that you would have learnt during the course of your preparation. It can be about managing stress, study routine, helpful resources etc. You can share this knowledge through online and offline mediums with others and connect with people in order to help them. Sharing your knowledge and experience will be a great way for you to analyze your learning path and journey.
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