Can you believe summer is nearly over? It feels like the beach opened yesterday. You may be thinking about all the last-minute summer activities you can cram into your life before school starts. Don’t stress yourself out; here are some tips for happily ending the summer:
Reflect
Summer doesn’t seem like that long. But really, you’ve had 2-3 months worth of events and experiences. Take a moment and reflect on your summer. What did you enjoy? What would you like to do next year? What did your learn from spending time with family and friends this summer? Before you exit summer into the busyness of school, reflect on what the summer months have taught you. Write these lessons down so you can hold on to them during the school year. Consider setting goals for your school year, what lessons do you want to expand on, tasks you want to accomplish or battles you want to overcome by the end of the year? Create a plan of attack so the semester doesn’t come and go without your meeting your new goals!
Prioritize
Summer is busy and you may have not been able to do everything you wanted. You don’t have a lot of time at the end of the summer either. Prioritizing what you want to do the rest of this summer will help make sure that you end summer in the best way possible. Let’s say, the two things you have left to do this summer are: 1.) go to the beach with your friends and 2.) start running with another friend to maintain a healthy lifestyle and body. Between the two of those things, going to the beach is more important, because you can start running in the fall. Prioritize the last few things you wanted to do this summer and decide what’s doable and most important. Also, sort task out into categories of what can be accomplished quickly or what needs more time. It would be frustrating to start one task now and not be able to finish it until Christmas break. Instead, take one day or one hour to knock out a bunch of simple tasks as you see your summer season coming to a close. Then you’ll feel relieved as you go back to school that you’ve made a significant dent in your to-do-list.
Prepare
Ending the summer means preparing for the fall. You probably want to hold off on getting ready until the last minute, but that’s not the best option. Gathering information about classes, extra curricular activities and your schedule will make transitioning back to school much less hectic. Spend some of this free time as a way to make your structured schedule less stressful. Get yourself organized. Color code your calendar and class list, set up a few new apps that will help you stay organized over the school year, create a few items for your study space that will inspire and motivate you when you’re feeling overwhelmed or stressed.
Summer is ending-but it’s not over yet! We would love to hear more about how you spent your summer. Share with us on Twitter or Instagram some of the ways you had fun this summer.
