Adulting Back to School
I went to Target the other day to get one thing, soap, and as usual ended up canvassing the whole store and spending about 10x more than I wanted/needed. It wasn’t just the usual ‘Oh I’m going to try these awesome Sour Fruit Snacks/new grapefruit Burt’s Bees/huge bath towel.’ It was worse – it was back to school.
I don’t know about you, I have a love/hate relationship with back to school. Love: I love learning new things, buying new Sharpies, opening fresh notebooks. Hate: That anxiety of ‘am I doing enough’ isn’t fun post high school. Let’s be honest, it never was fun and now it’s some weird imposter syndrome BS.
High school is (mostly) over, as are back to school days. College and grad school back to school adventures are close but not quite. Don’t you wish we could harness that same energy again as adults? Be honest, you see the display of folders and notebooks and you get the same happy panic I described above. If you’re silently or not-so-silently nodding, let’s get back in gear and back to school! Here are a few tips to get you ready for fall, back to school adulting style:
Do a purge. All of those summer receipts and papers that you’ve been stacking on a shelf? File them, shred them, or put them away. Spring-cleaning isn’t just for spring, and you can’t move forward surrounded by the receipts from the taco stand, the flip-flop tag and the wristband from the summer concert.
Organize yourself. Do you have big plans for fall? New job? Heading back to college? Working on professional or personal development? Getting on a dating site? Get some of those Post-Its, notebooks and markers that are on sale and start planning! Make a list of the things you want to accomplish. Have headings like Life/Career/Relationship and bullet some things you want to change, as well as a few action items. Get started and be the overachiever you were in HS.
Take a class. A lot of course providers love the idea of back to school and offer cheaper classes to get new students excited and interested. Check out Course Horse to see if there are classes in your city.
Practice self-care. Remember when we would stay up all night to write papers in undergrad, go out with friends and not sleep and make it to class like a boss? That hurts now. A LOT. Sleep, workout, binge on Netflix and check in. Make sure you are taking care of YOU.
Catch up with friends. Your friends are your tribe. Call them, hit up coffee or better yet lunch, and connect in person. The cafeteria was the great equalizer in school, and we HAD to go to lunch. No one is making us take a break and eat lunch anymore. Make yourself.
Any back to school tips to add? Let us know!