Student Life | Issue 41

2. REFLECTION ALSO TOLD ME
I WAS NOT USING MY TIME AS
EFFECTIVELY, OR AS EFFICIENTLY,
AS I COULD.
This led to me overworking,
overstudying, and having no time for
‘life’. Creation of a weekly planner
was a revelation! It seems so simple
but yet was so powerful. It allowed
me to organise my day and my weeks
better and allowed me to see how
much time I had. It allowed me to
write down my work for the following
day allowing me to mentally prepare
myself, and, more importantly,
reduce stress as I was drifting off
to sleep. It allowed me to schedule
walks, running, exercise, and allowed
a general increase in my quality of
life and better mental and physical
health.
3. REFLECTION ALSO TOLD ME I
WAS IGNORING NATURE – ONE
OF MY GREATEST INTERESTS –
And I was falling behind in my work.
Two ironies were behind this – I
was not falling behind; just simply
overworking by not being effective
in my work, and if I set time to do a
walk, I would be more likely to do it.
Using the weekly planner ensured
I did and soon habits formed. I was
reminded during lockdown of the
importance of nature by doing daily
walks, and now that is my favourite
part of my day. Ah! If only I hadn’t
ignored nature before. Another great
positive of lockdown!
4. REFLECTION ALSO TOLD ME
I WAS TAKING MY FAMILY FOR
GRANTED.
A stupid thing I think in hindsight! In
particular, I was not valuing the time I
spend with my Grandad as much as I
should have been and it took the first
lockdown to give me that wake-up
call. This is even more potent now
given he’s 81 and has both prostate
and up to the 22nd of December skin
cancer (that has now been removed).
Why I took family for granted I can’t
answer, but now I respect seeing
them more, value them more and
that is a really positive change!
Whilst lockdown has given me
more time and the ability for
me to learn new skills such as
Danish and running; lockdown
in many other respects has
been really hard: lockdown
has caused more anxiety and
stress with all my modules for
university changed, significantly
altered and has deprived me
the ability to plan. The hardest
thing about lockdown, though, is
not seeing friends: I miss social
interaction – at one stage I had
not seen anyone but the people
in my household and Grandad
for 168 days. 168 days of seeing
the same people and no variety.
That was really hard. I can’t wait
to see my friends, to chat and
develop friendships again. I want
to meet new people from new
backgrounds: I just want social
interaction.
55 55 •• MARCH ISSUE 2019 41 •• STUDENT LIFE LIFE