It’s only week four?

That’s the question I’ve been asking since last week, as far as I remember. 

There are fifteen weeks in the semester, and we just hit halfway to the halfway point. It’s the beginning of the semester for most, including me. I’ve only just started working on big projects for my classes this semester.

And it feels like it’s been years.

Rowan boasts 414 clubs on Proflink, 80 bachelor’s programs, 60 master’s programs, and hundreds of classes in those majors. It’s easy to see that the university is full of opportunities and interesting things to do. That’s not even to mention events in and outside of Rowan.

I’ve always been a go-getter, a person who says “yes” to a lot. In high school, that was fine. I had plenty of free time after school to do whatever I pleased.

Now, however, there’s a different story. In my pursuit of a career in journalism and photography, which are both careers that don’t lend kindly to salaries and benefits, I need to constantly keep doing jobs to prove that I can be of use to employers or clients.

College is stressful, which isn’t a controversial statement. Even if we’re not in 400 clubs, we have to take a bunch of classes, socialize, and work hard to succeed in our fields.

For me, it’s also saying “yes” to any and almost every opportunity that comes my way. Not just “yes,” but even further than that.

I’ve found myself this semester, four weeks in, with a smattering of projects, assignments, articles, photos, social obligations, and family obligations. That’s not to mention the huge amount of obligations and stress we feel from politics, financial strain, or that our fly was down all day and nobody made a peep.

I asked myself on an hour-long drive back from Cape May, where I spent two hours hitting dead-end after dead-end on a project I’m doing outside of Rowan, “Am I doing too much?”

I asked myself the same question after spending a 12-hour day working and meeting up with friends, feeling absolutely burnt out by the end.

I ask myself the same question when I look at my schedule for the week and feel utter dread.

I love what I do. I’m obsessed with photography and thoroughly enjoy meeting new people and writing articles. That doesn’t mean I can’t take a step back, however.

There are ways to take a step back and still be open to opportunities and work.

Firstly, something I’ve done before and I’m now giving another try in college is scheduling rest time in my calendar. For me, if something is on my calendar, it’s a thing I have to do. And on the flip side, if it’s not in my calendar, it doesn’t exist and is space waiting to be filled.

Scheduling rest mitigates that problem by it being visible in my calendar. It’s a signal that says, “Hey, don’t schedule something else here.”

It’s not an end-all-be-all. I can be flexible with the time, but if I schedule an hour of rest on a particular day, I’m going to take an hour of rest, even if I have to move it a little bit to fit with the rest of my schedule.

Another thing that helps me with burnout is taking a long morning for myself. I’ve always been a morning person, so waking up early has never been a problem for me.

Since my roommates don’t wake up as early as I do, I can take the morning as a time to listen to music (if I’m feeling even more cozy, I’ll listen to vinyl records), read a book, watch a show (M*A*S*H anyone?), or even catch up on homework if I’m feeling extra motivated.

Not everyone’s a morning person, so taking a slower nightly routine or even having a midday Spanish-style siesta (if you can swing it), can do wonders for the mind.

We could also take more frequent breaks while working. Not scroll-on-Tik-Tok breaks, however.

I’ve found that even staring into space for five minutes or reading a book can get me back into the headspace to work for a little while longer. Social media, or technology usage at all, makes me more anxious before going back to work. Too many notifications from work and that guy I keep putting off lunch with.

One last idea to keep the burnout at bay is to say “no.”

While getting ahead and working hard are both great things, sometimes I find myself saying “yes” to everything, even things that I can’t do for one reason or another.

While it is the hard thing to do, sometimes declining to start a new project or go out to college night is a way to give yourself permission to work or rest and recover.

So are we doing too much? Maybe, but that doesn’t mean we’re doomed. To take full advantage of college and be our best selves demands we take some time off for ourselves.

To rephrase, resting and recharging are not only good for you, but they’re just as productive (if not more) as pulling an all-nighter and working too hard.

So even if you don’t want to help yourself, do your work the favor of decompressing and letting yourself heal.

For comments/questions about this story DM us on Instagram @thewhitatrowan or email opinion@gmail.com