Harnessing your summer for a better school year.

This is something I learned from my mother and It. Will. Change. Your. Life.

First, let me say that this is something that I did unwillingly. My mother was a school teacher, and even though she’d gotten a corporate job early in my school carrier, she still was more invested and active in my education than most parents. Other families went on vacation without having to research where they were going and didn’t have schoolwork their mothers had assigned them to complete. Similarly, Most kids don’t have homework over the summer hols either. I distinctly remember the first time I read the letter that was sent out with the summer reading lists. It told me to choose three of the 18 books listed. Choose? What is this “choose”? Every year prior, I had been told to read the whole list. My mother confessed that she had me read most/all of the list to prepare me for the school year better and keep my brain engaged. I remember feeling a little proud of how she’d pulled one over on me. I also felt proud that I paid better attention to my own education.

Here’s the thing, though (and the point I want you to take away from this) most of the books on that summer reading list were part of the curriculum that fall. My mother couldn’t make me read the whole list, but she did make me read more than the three. While I don’t remember how many books I had to read, I do remember being several months ahead of my peers when school started. By using my summer to keep my brain engaged in academics as well as all the summer fun, I had stumbled upon a cheat code for school.

I wish I had taken better advantage of this. I wish I had used that free time to stay ahead or pursue a productive hobby. But I was overwhelmed with other classes and satisfied that I had little to no work for at least one. Later when I was in control of my own education (read college me), I found other ways to get ahead during breaks and to time manage my “free time” to make my school life more effortless.

I would still try to read ahead. I would also try to look back. You never know when the information for one class will be helpful in another or when a subject you have to take in the next course will go rusty and fade while you’re taking a break from it. This is particularly the case over the longer summer break.

My trick is to give myself a breather—about a week of nothingness before I dive back in. If I were taking a class with a final, I would have already summarized the notes; if not, they needed to be summarized. This will give me something to review or refer to should I take a similar class in the fall or at any point in the future. It also greatly reduces the amount of paperwork I’m saving from any one class.

Next, I make sure my references are in order. I have written before about how references are a goldmine you should hang on to. They hold their value for years to come and can save you hours and hours of work in the future, but not if you don’t can’t find them. I used to use an Excel sheet for this. Now, I use a reference manager coupled with an organized scrivener file(s). My most recent success story with this method is the fact that I will be using almost every book/paper I read in my master’s program while I’m getting my doctorate. About 70% of my research was already done before I even started the program. As I said, it can save you hours of work.

Then I do a little research into any master class, online seminar, or other coursework I might be taking that summer and would want related notes for. In the summer, I like to keep my brain active in a way that doesn’t involve deadlines. To this end, I usually do seminars like the ones on Master Class. These keep my brain active and don’t require any reference. Anything that isn’t a summary note or something I deem a good future reference point gets tossed into the recycle bin.

After that, I take a break, and I won’t ruin my whole summer studying. Many studies point to fatigue being detrimental to not only your mental health but also your performance. If you have a summer break, enjoy it.

Four weeks or so before classes start back up; I look to see what the required reading and supplemental reading for the course will be and order them along with my school supplies. If this information isn’t readily available, I would email my professor for it. Then when it arrived, I would give it a glance over and pull out any notes from previous classes that might be helpful to review. Just half an hour to an hour a day for a couple of weeks (As classes got harder or more self-led, this time commitment increased), I would go over old notes and read the supplemental reading. I don’t know anyone that has time to get to the supplemental reading during the course of the actual class, but I’ve found it very helpful if I can read a little of it beforehand.

So there you go, an hour or less a day for five out of ten weeks, and you will be very well set for the coming classes and workload. If you stay on top of things, you’ll find the academic year much more relaxed and less stressful. If you’re like me, this will translate into better overall work and better work-life balance. Since each year I was pulling on the work of years prior as well as the summer’s work, I didn’t get as overwhelmed when classes got progressively more challenging. Here’s hoping it works for you too.