…because you have to make it.

Uni is a lot. You spend every waking hour of your day either attending classes, doing readings, doing homework, or studying for exams. And if you’ve taken up a part time job or are deeply involved with a campus club, then that’s another couple of hours deducted from your week. That’s draining. What’s more: we sometimes see our time alone as a waste of time. Why play guitar or write or learn Spanish when you could be studying or revising that essay with fresh eyes?

You’ve heard all the time management advice already. What I’ll do instead is share some of my reflections on making time and urge you to think about your time.

This topic means a lot to me because I worked on a magazine for a club last semester. Something I learned  the hard way  is that you don’t really have set hours for university. High school is 8am to 3pm plus a couple worksheets, maybe, and you’re done. University will be 12 to 12 if you let it, so there is no ‘done.’ I found myself using one class to write essays for another class, pulling 15-hour assignment marathons (seriously), and working on the magazine until InDesign crashed or my laptop died. I was so stretched thin that I didn’t want to talk to anyone or do anything because I just “didn’t have the time.” And that’s just because I managed it poorly and let university take all of it up.

Here are some of the things I thought about when I was in the throes of the magazine development:

1. Too much or too little of anything is bad

I was the art director for the magazine. Part of my job was graphic design, and I love graphic design.

I’ve been doing graphic design my whole life  on paper, on MS Paint, on PowerPoint… if I can make a shape on it, I’ve designed on it. So, before work started, the idea of spearheading the design of a magazine was so enticing. By the time the magazine was done, however, I was grateful that it was over and kind of dreading doing it again the following year. This is because I had made something that I enjoy take up all my time, from waking to sleeping from Sunday to Saturday.

I put so much time and energy into the magazine that I sidelined my coursework. Sometimes I got lucky, other times I paid the price. And when I say this, I don’t just mean that my grades slipped; what I mean is that my ability to keep up in class took a hit. The same thing applies in the inverse; if you spend 99% of your time doing coursework and 1% doing things you enjoy, your mood and mental health may take a hit.

Consider, this coming school year, how balanced your time is between what you have to do and what you want and like to do.

2. You need some non-negotiables

Protect time for the things you enjoy. When I’m in school, I make a point to go to church every Sunday and attend small group every week, for spiritual health and social interaction. I try my best to spend time with my best friend studying in Downtown Toronto at least once a month. I make music every time inspiration strikes. Three and a half hours of church activities a week are a blip in my week, and four hours in Toronto are nothing in my month. Five hours of flow state music production is still nothing in the grand scheme of things, but those things will make me feel better. As such, I rarely compromise on these things.

I would recommend also that you find some things that you enjoy and set them as non-negotiables. Your schoolwork is already the biggest one, but it shouldn’t be the only one. And not all of these non-negotiables are created equally.

We have a responsibility as students pursuing a degree to do our best, and an expectation to do well. For our hobbies, though, we only have to do our best.

3. It doesn’t have to be good, as long as you do it

…do something. I tried to get back into reading for pleasure this past semester and found that I was getting discouraged whenever I didn’t read a chapter a day every day for a month. So, then I didn’t read. But completion is not the point of a hobby. The point of a hobby is enjoyment!

In school, external expectations to do well work because we have an accountability system. If you don’t do anything at all, your grades take a hit, your GPA falls, and your degree hangs in the balance. So, you’ll psych yourself up to submit an assignment even if you’re convinced it’s not going to get you an A+. On the other hand, when we expect ourselves to be prodigies at our hobbies and we fall short of that, the simple way to avoid failure is inaction. There’s nothing external that forces us not to be inactive. The best way to go about it is to unlearn the self-imposed expectation to be great. Don’t turn your hobby into a job.

4. Who do you want to be?

Lastly, being a good student is important. But the most interesting people I’ve met at uni, while they are good students, aren’t interesting for that reason alone.

I know someone who is remarkably well read when it comes to sociology and anthropology  she majors in communications, like me. It’s interesting to ask her questions about politics and current events. I know people who’ve seen every film and every series, so it’s interesting to hear them go on about Marvel versus DC or whether Aang would beat Korra in a fight.

I know someone who played hockey, and it’s interesting to talk to him about his games. I know someone who crushes it on the guitar, and someone else who blows me away on the keyboard, and someone else whose voice I could fall asleep to. It’s interesting to hear them play and ask them about music theory.

I know someone else who knocks off a book every week. It’s interesting to hear her tell me about what she’s read. I know several people who know musical soundtracks; they wrote them themselves. Just last month, we watched Hadestown together. I know a guy who lives in the gym he and I bonded over my pathetic bench presses.