Becoming a stress-free student starts with the schedule. The goal is not to create a prison that will not allow you to be spontaneous. Instead, think of it as a guide for how you want to spend your days. If you were to create the best week you could possibly have, what would it look like? It cannot be all "me" time because at the end of the week, you would be worse off than at the beginning of the week, and that's a useless week.
So let's agree that there needs to be some responsibility built into your schedule. You need to go to classes, you need time to focus on your studying, you need time to plan your career, you need time to pay attention to your mental and physical health. You need to sleep, you need to eat, you need time for friends, and you need to call your family. Your life is complex. You can't work all day just as you can't play all day. So what's the ratio of responsibility to reward?
You have to negotiate with yourself and not terrorize yourself. You need to set up a week that you'll be proud of. You will not hit it with 100% accuracy, but even a 50% accuracy is better than zero. The next week, you may hit 60%, and that will spin you into a positive feedback loop where you're more and more accurate and productive. Remember, success breeds success. That to start with is fine. Persistence is what you need to be. A routine is what keeps you sane.
In the following lessons, we'll go over building your ideal schedule. We'll want to put in all the things you have to do and want to do so that we can cover when you can study, and for how long. Figuring out your study time is the first step toward knowing whether you'll have enough time to get everything done on time, or if you need to change your schedule, but more on that later.