The transition from February to March is nothing easy, and this is the time when everyone seems to fall off the track a. The weather is all over the place, and so are the students. My purpose is to help at least one student not fall into the typical end-of-year-cycle that most (even I) am guilty of.

Recently we’ve had several schools days off. Winter break, snow days, spring break.  Whatever the case may be, it’s easy to forget about school work while laying in your bed or just enjoying the time with your family. Leaving last minute work, however, results in insufficient quality or even not getting it done at all. There are different steps you can follow in order to make sure you are never stuck with loads of work left unfinished.

From my experience, most teachers assign homework due at a future date. Instead of waiting until the last minute, split it up into sections. If you have two days to annotate a story, annotate half the pages one night and complete the rest the next. There was a reason you were given multiple days for the assignment, so use it to your advantage.

Next, if you have an essay or an outline that you know will take a long time, you should again break it up. Pace yourself to complete the assignment with a day or two left over for editing or extra credit. If you have the time, use it. Many students have terrible experiences in high school and complain about the workload. Spread out the work and do a little each day.  Doing small things like timing and breaking up larger assignments will save you from unneeded stress.

So we covered how to deal with large assignments while having smaller ones in between, but how do you stay motivated with all these days off? It’s very easy to let assignments fall to the back of your brain or to sleep rather than do your homework. While on break or snow days, we typically have many days with nothing planned.  This is the time to catch up on school work or get a head start on longer assignments. Although we’re not physically in class, teachers will still send you work. It is extremely important to have your notifications turned on for google classroom, and if you don’t, regularly check it for posted assignments. You won’t be working enough to get bored, but you won’t be doing nothing at all.

With all these days off and breaks that have passed or are yet to come up, we can’t slack on our work. Days off aren’t days to rest, but rather days to get better. As for myself, I keep a post-it with my daily goals, and my big SAT book on my desk to remind me of everything coming up. These little reminders show me that even on days off, I still have responsibilities.

As students we should be active learners, taking every moment as a chance to get better and get closer to our success.