By: Sam Cote

The best piece of advice I got from upper-level students during orientation was to create a buffer between the time I dedicated to school and the time I allocated for myself. My strategy was quite simple, don’t leave the library to go home until I finished all my work for the day. This accomplished two important goals. I didn’t have to haul any heavy casebooks on my commute home, and once I was home I could relax without the stress of first year classes and LPS assignments weighing on me. Initially I thought that upper-level students had recommended finishing your work in the library to avoid the distractions that come with doing schoolwork at home. The transition to online learning made it clear to me, however, that it served a parallel and perhaps more important purpose. This strategy allowed me to be free of the stress of schoolwork once I made it home. It meant I could actually enjoy the little free time I had.

After a few weeks of remote learning, with nothing to do for recreation because of the pandemic, I realized that I had been working from 9:00 A.M. to 7 or 8:00 P.M. most weeknights. I had not taken a full weekend day off since Spring Break. Without the ability to call it quits and leave the library for the day my school time was bleeding into personal time. I had to find a way to break up my day, despite working and living in the same small space, or I would be burned out by the time finals came around.

Change your space. Ideally everyone would be able to work in a home office that was dedicated to schoolwork and mirrors the physical separation of the library and the home. For many people, including myself, that is not a realistic possibility. Whether you are living in a small apartment alone, with roommates or a partner, with family, or living in a house with plenty of space, you can benefit by changing something in the room that signals “school time” or “me time.” Think of it like a store front with a closed/open sign. The store remains exactly the same, but if you turn the lights out and flip the sign so it reads “closed,” everyone who reads it immediately understands that the space is functionally different. The purpose of the space is changed, and so to can you change the purpose of your space by making even a small change.

For me, that meant rearranging the kitchen table and moving it to the middle of the room. When the table was in the middle of the room I used it as a work desk, and when it came time to call it quits I cleared the table and moved it back to the corner of the room where it usually sits. The small shift in the setup of the room was significant enough for me to recognize that the workday was over. I incorporated a variety of other methods as time went on, and the importance of demarcating my day became more important. Often times I would go for a walk, go to the grocery store, anything I could do to help transition my mind out of school-mode. Some of those things worked and some didn’t, but the most consistent step I took was physically altering the layout of my space so that it reflected my current mindset. When you are learning from home its imperative to find a way to switch the sign to “closed,” even something as simple as moving a lamp from one side of your desk to another can work. Find something and make a habit of it doing it every day because being a first year law student will never work if you are open for business 24/7.