Five Tips to Take Back to School

Toni Lucas, Pincher Creek Voice

Schooldays at the museum
T. Lucas photo

Going back to school.

Some face it with enthusiasm and vigor, some with dread.
If you are going back you will be counting the days, either way.

Here are five tips that you can use to help you make this
time of transition and the rest of the school year smoother.

• Regulate your schedule: Over the summer you have gone to events, been out with family and friends, possibly worked a job. Your body and your mind may not be used to the regimented schedule that you will be facing. You will be waking up the same time everyday, eating breakfast, perhaps catching the bus, doing your homework. If you go to bed at a realistic time and set your alarm so that you wake up at the time that you will have to in just a few days, you will ease yourself in with a lot less shock than if you sleep as late as you can until the day that you have to be up and out the door.

• Be prepared: Planning ahead will save you anguish and stress.
• Have your supplies ready, in a way that is easy for you to carry.
• Know if you have to bring additional or different things on different days. If there are items that you are to have the next day, get them ready the evening before so that you are not scrambling at the last minute.
• Choosing what clothes you are going to wear the next day and having them out will save you time, and decisions the morning.

• Be organized: Keeping the things that you will be needing often, like supplies that you use in every class in an easy to access pocket, and then making sure that it always goes back into that same place will make it a simple routine that will serve you throughout the whole year.

• Be flexible: You may find that plans may change. Even if you are well prepared, you may have things happen that are beyond your control. You may not be in the classes you signed up for, or require items for your class that you were not aware of. This happens all the time in a variety of ways to everybody. Being prepared will help you, being flexible will make it possible for you to get past the stress of it not going as planned and dealing with the situation at hand.

• Go in with a good attitude: Your attitude makes a difference, and can only be set by you. No one else actually makes you feel any particular way, they are your feelings. If you chose to be positive, it will affect your chemistry to the point that you feel the way that you are choosing to think. Choose to have the best school year that you can.