Eating, sleeping, and procrastinating. These are a few of the biggest challenges once you come to college. All of the sudden, you have more time on your hands than you’ve ever had before. What do you do with it? After you are finished studying, joining as many extracurricular activities as possible, and hanging out with your best friends, it’s time to eat, sleep, and, of course, procrastinate.
Eating in college is the best. It’s so great, actually, that you may even do too much of it. The unlimited fro-yo machine at the dining hall will quickly start calling your name three times a day before you know it. Like everything in college, it’s all about balance. I have found a few new apps that have made eating treats and staying healthy at the same time a little bit easier. The first app is Google Calendar. Open up the app, click the “+” icon, select goal, and input it in with a date and time you want to achieve it by! There are not only goals premade for exercising, but also building a skill, spending time with friends and family, setting aside “me time”, and organizing your life! Another app is called Fooducate. You can scan any food with a barcode and it will display the nutritional information on your phone. If you’re interested, it can also log what you eat and how much you exercise. Another helpful app is called Microsoft HealthVault. This app stores health data from the apps on your devices and makes accessing the information super easy in case you need to visit the health center.
Another fun part of college is sleeping. The key to successful sleeping is at least trying to get the same amount of sleep each night. One app that will help you wake up after a great nights rest is called Sleep Cycle. Sleep Cycle is an app that analyzes your sleep and wakes you during your lightest phase of sleep. FitBit also tracks how well you sleep. That is another great way to set sleeping goals for yourself.
The never-ending struggle of college is procrastination. Why write your paper that is due for a month when Gilmore Girls and Game of Thrones is calling your name? Well, to be successful in college of course! If you spend too much time on social media apps on your phone, give the app called Rescue Time a try. This app limits the amount of time you can spend on certain apps. Self-control is also a great tool to stay focused. Download self-control and create a list of websites that you need to take a break from. You customize the amount of time that the websites will be blocked, so you can watch that episode of Orange is the New Black right after you finish your homework!
College really is a fantastic time in your life. You learn as much outside of the classroom as you do within it. These tools and resources may just make the learning curve of setting your own boundaries a little bit easier!
-Caroline Gurley
