Winter Break: Plan with Me!

It’s almost Christmas! While this year isn’t going to be anything like previous years, I hope we can all get home safely and enjoy a much-needed break with family & friends. It is SO important for you to take a break. Don’t spend every waking minute working / catching up, because you’ll find yourself burning out before Term 2 has even begun…

That being said, most of us will still have work to do & assignments to complete, so Winter Break can’t be all resting & eating. I think it’s important to have a plan in place so that you can get your work done efficiently & spend the maximum amount of time in bed watching movies! So, here’s my step-by-step planning for Winter Break 🙂

Step 1 – Work Out How Many Days You Have

First, you want to look at a calendar of the entire Winter Break and determine what days you will and won’t work.

For example;

Winter Break starts on the Saturday 12th December and ends on Sunday 10th January. That’s 30 days.

Days I won’t work:

24th Dec – Christmas Eve

25th Dec – Christmas

31st Dec – New Year’s Eve & last day in Dubai

1st Jan – flight to UK

That narrows it down to 26 days. Now I am gonna take 4 more days away – this is because I know that sometimes stuff comes up, or I just need a day off.

So, I have 22 days.

Step 2 – Work Out What You Have to Do

List everything you want to get done, in order of priority / deadlines.

For me:

EU Law essay (due 11 Jan)

Writing Human Rights Final Piece (due 12 Jan)

Writing Human Rights Reflective Journal (due 12 Jan)

Contract Law – make cases booklet

ConAd Law – make cases booklet

Contract Law – review notes

ConAd Law – review notes

As you can see, some of these tasks are assignments with deadlines, whereas some I have set myself. Always prioritise the deadlines, of course, and don’t worry if you don’t do anything further than this!

Step 3 – Break Down These Tasks

Now you want to breakdown these tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks. This will be entirely dependant on your tasks and what you can manage.

Step 4 – Allocate Tasks to Days

From your long list of tasks, take each one and allocate it to each of the days you have identified as ‘work days’. Think carefully about how long tasks may take you – some days you may have 3 tasks that don’t take long, some days you’ll have 1 long task – that’s okay! Just make sure you’re realistic with it.

I also like to see how many days I have per overall task, when I schedule it all out and take into account my 22 days, mine looks something like this:

EU Law essay – 9 days

Writing Human Rights Final Piece & Reflective Journal – 8 days

Contract Law & ConAd Law – make cases booklet – 3 days

Contract Law & ConAd Law – review notes – 2 days

Also, remember the extra days we took off earlier? If you don’t use them to rest, you can use them to catch-up!

Step 5 – Start working!

I always start working a day ahead of my schedule starting so that it feels like I’m already ahead of the work & it’s not as annoying when you inevitably fall behind at some point.

Also, be flexible with it! If you don’t get something done on one day, move it to another day! If you don’t fancy doing the work you’ve allocated for that day, do something else. There’s no point trying to stick to a really strict schedule if it means you don’t finish everything!

Remember – rest is JUST as important, and arguably more important, than the work you have to do. If you do the absolute minimum in terms of your assignments, you’re still doing well. If you go above and beyond and recap all of the content, you’re doing well.

Look after yourselves & enjoy the Winter Break <3