Five Summer Activities to Set Yourself up for Success Next Semester
This summer, be sure to take time to rest and regroup for the incoming academic year — you've earned a break after your hard work. Once you're ready to tackle the next challenge, consider adding some of these activities to your schedule, so that you can set yourself up for success next semester and each day of the summer ahead.
By Ceanna Hayes Daniels — June 5, 2023
As summer draws nearer, many students begin daydreaming about everything they'll do after they turn in their last paper and set down their pencils after their final exam. The season offers a great opportunity to spend time with loved ones, head outdoors more often, and take a well-deserved break from the academic year. In addition, it provides the opportunity to schedule a few activities that will set you up for success when you head back to campus in the fall. Here are some ideas to get you started:
Declutter Your Inbox(es)
The average person's email inboxes are often filled to the brim with unread, unorganized content. Eventually, the sheer volume of emails in your inbox can cause visual and even emotional overwhelm, leaving you with the urge to just close the tab and deal with it all later — even though you know it will only get worse the longer you leave it. This summer, take some time to declutter your inboxes, especially your college email inbox, so that you can navigate them more effectively next year and eliminate inbox anxiety.
One of the best ways to free up your mind to focus on what's most important to you is to preemptively eliminate irrelevant distractions. While decluttering your college email inbox this summer, take a few minutes to unsubscribe from mailing lists that won't be relevant to you next year, such as an extracurricular group you're planning to reduce your involvement with to make more time for other organizations or your on-campus job.
When you begin organizing your inboxes, start with one task that feels manageable to decrease the overwhelm of the overall project. For example, if you have a "spam" email address you usually reserve for mailing lists, you might choose to start there and unsubscribe from marketing materials from any companies you aren't interested in anymore. Alternatively, you might decide to start with one task in your college email inbox, such as deleting or archiving outdated event reminders from the student activities office.
It can also be helpful to create folders and subfolders for your inbox, so that in the coming year you can categorize new emails with ease and quickly find whatever information you're looking for. Your filing system doesn't need to be elaborate; it just needs to help you keep track of what's important to you. You might choose to use a diverse range of specific categories, like "Upcoming Events", "School-wide Announcements", and "Scholarship Opportunities" in addition to class-specific files to keep track of communication from each professor. Alternatively, you might decide to use just a few broad categories, like "Class" and "Personal" to organize your inbox.
Update Your Resume
If you have a summer job or internship, consider scheduling time near the end of the season to update your resume to reflect the experience you've gained. One of the best ways to simplify this task is to take notes throughout the internship on important responsibilities, projects, and feedback; this will allow you to effectively describe the position and your impact within the role when you update your resume at the end of the summer.
Even if you aren't planning to work this summer — perhaps you're caring for sick family members, studying for a major exam like the GRE or LSAT, or taking summer classes to graduate early — it's still worthwhile to give your resume a quick facelift. Make sure that your contact information is up to date, that you've added end dates to former jobs, and that there aren't any typos or formatting errors you may have missed last time you reviewed the document. In addition, be sure to save the document with a clear, professional file name that will help you to easily locate this updated resume when you're applying for jobs again.
Kickstart or Maintain Healthy Routines
After spending a year building good habits and waking up early for classes, it can be tempting to spend the summer sleeping in, staying up late, and avoiding strict schedules as a reward for your efforts. However, taking time off doesn't have to mean abandoning the progress you've made through healthy routines. In fact, the summer is a great time to analyze your daily routines to make sure they're still serving you well, helping you to achieve your long-term goals, and contributing to a healthy work-life balance rather than leading you to burnout!
If you've had a consistent daily routine throughout the academic year, sit down with a pen and paper to analyze what's still working and what you want to change. Then, use the summer to give any changes a trial run to see whether they're worth implementing full-time in the fall. Perhaps your mornings have been rushed, but since you've still made it to class on time, you haven't yet adjusted your schedule. This summer, you might try waking up fifteen minutes earlier to give yourself some extra breathing room in the morning, and adjust the time you usually head to sleep in order to maintain a healthy amount of rest.
If you don't already have a particular daily routine, try taking some time this summer to test a few potential options and develop a routine that works for you. Some people like to start their days with high-energy workouts and motivational podcasts, while others prefer quieter mornings with a cup of tea and some time to journal, meditate, or pray. Some like to work for one uninterrupted block of time before switching to their personal time, while others like to intersperse rest periods throughout their work hours. Some like to end their day by winding down with a relaxing hobby like reading or crochet, while others prefer to plan and prepare for the day to come. Rather than putting pressure on yourself to merely imitate what others are doing, consider mixing and matching the activities that will bring the most structure and peace to your day, so that you can create a routine that meets your needs and enables you to pursue your goals.
Remember, the purpose of a daily routine is just to give enough structure to your day that you can schedule time for both rest and work. Although influencers tend to promote lengthy, intricate routines that schedule each day down to the minute, your own routine can be much more flexible and relaxed, especially during these summer months. The goal is to find a workable routine, not to force yourself to adhere to an unnecessarily stringent system just because it works for someone else on paper.
Read Regularly
Reading regularly sets you up for success that will long outlast your college classes; it improves your communication skills, increases your vocabulary, boosts your concentration, strengthens your empathy by opening your eyes to others' experiences, and more. Despite its benefits, though, some may be intimidated by the idea of developing a "regular" habit of reading. However, this doesn't mean you have to establish a flawless record of reading an hour or more at a specific time each day without any exceptions — your reading habit could look like reading a few times a week or completing a specific number of pages by the end of a month.
As you consider getting into the habit of reading regularly, try setting a goal that matches your capacity for the summer. If you don't think of yourself as much of "a reader," consider picking a book (or two) to work through over the course of the summer — it will more than repay the time you invest into it. If you read fairly often, consider aiming for one book a month, or even one a week if you feel like a challenge. If you're an ambitious reader who routinely surpasses that number already, change things up this summer by focusing on hyper-specific goal or a wholly new category rather than just a higher number. For example, you might try to read every book a favorite novelist wrote in their lifetime, or, if you usually go for nonfiction, you might branch out into poetry.
If you're intimidated by the idea of reading regularly, pick up a book that feels interesting and doable to get you started, regardless of whether or not it's popular or renowned. If you tend towards procrastination, try setting a page goal for each week or month, as well as a small reward for meeting that goal — regular check-in points like these will help you to meet the goal without a frantic scramble a few days before classes start again. Lastly, if you tend to be overly ambitious, choose a goal that feels easy. This will prevent stress in case you become unexpectedly busy, while also providing an opportunity to celebrate if you meet or surpass your goal.
Use Journaling to Create Micro-Goals
Lastly, consider setting aside some time during the summer — either several short, recurring events or one long session — to journal and reflect on the previous year. Ask yourself questions like what you're proud of yourself for doing, what you want to make more time for next semester, what the people you admire are doing, and what your goals are for the new year. It can also be helpful to ask yourself who you want to be at graduation, at the end of next year, and at the end of this summer.
Next, take the answers to your questions and use them to inform micro-goals — small, easily-implemented goals that will help you reach bigger, long-term goals in the future. For example, if you want to write a book by senior year of college, then you might set up a micro-goal of writing 50 words each day this summer to build the habit of writing. If you want to work out every day next year, you might create a micro-goal of doing one pushup each day to get your muscles used to some daily movement.
For students who are used to engaging with highly aspirational content, micro-goals can seem almost pointlessly miniscule. However, that's the point — the goals are so small that they can be done every day, even if you only remember at 11:59pm. At that point, it feels almost foolish not to meet the goal. Micro-goals are intentionally designed to be attainable, boosting your confidence by helping you make concrete progress towards achieving your goals, even the ones that once feel too ambitious.
Conclusion
This summer, be sure to take time to rest and regroup for the incoming academic year — you've earned a break after your hard work. Once you're ready to tackle the next challenge, consider adding some of these activities to your schedule, so that you can set yourself up for success next semester and each day of the summer ahead.
Ceanna Hayes Daniels
Ceanna Hayes Daniels is freelance writer and editor. In 2022, she graduated Hillsdale College summa cum laude with a degree in politics. In her free time, she continues to enjoy studying philosophy, political theory, and literature. She and her husband live in Michigan, where the two enjoy perusing bookstores together for new books and old records.
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