Help! Homework is Burning Down My Life!

Truth is found in the unlikeliest places.

An arcade game within WoogiWorld. It consisted of running around the globe and stamping out fires. But as you stamped out one, the others blazed higher. Eventually, you couldn’t get them all.

What a fitting analogy for college.

A paper, a test, a forgotten quiz. Fires that pop out of nowhere constantly, until you reach the point where it’s too late. You’re stamping out four foot flames and suddenly those embers that you thought weren’t a priority are six feet high!

“Stamp out the fires before they get out of control,” says that voice in your head that sounds suspiciously like that one high school teacher. But that’s a lazy answer, because it doesn’t help now. And besides, we all know this won’t be the last time.

So, what then?

If you’re like me, you bury yourself under your covers and watch Youtube for a straight week. The more you watch, the more the guilt. And the more the guilt, the more you watch. Ever heard of a vicious cycle?

But maybe the problem isn’t in the blazing fires, but in the method. Why stomp when you can use a fire extinguisher?

For me that fire extinguisher was resetting my mindset by resetting my to-do list. Rather than  an ominous “blog” in my planner, I wrote “first draft.” Rather than “biology,” I wrote “read chapter 33.” My to-do list grew that much longer, but it also shrunk that much quicker, as I checked off more and more items.

So, take time to find your own fire extinguisher this week. You might find yourself able to breathe this semester, after all.