Saturday is the day you look forward to all week, so why waste it by being miserable and in bed with a hangover? After a hard week of classes, your part-time job or internship, exams, labs, club meetings and study groups, you certainly deserve a couple of days and nights to unwind with friends and catch up on sleep. But weekends are also ideal for catching up on the homework and organization you let slide during the week. Even if you don’t have a huge test on Monday, try using part of your Saturday for doing something productive.
During the week, keep a rough to-do list for Saturday. You can "drop" extra tasks that you don’t have time to get to during the week into your Saturday spot in your planner. You may want to catch up on your calendar, finally finish an outline for class, submit your study abroad application, or get ahead in reading to prepare for the following week. Don’t use Saturday as an excuse to procrastinate during the week, though, or your weekend will be busier and more stressful than it should be. Once you hit Friday, you can choose which tasks you actually want to complete over the weekend, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself. View your to-do list as a relaxed guide for keeping yourself on task and getting a head start for the next week so that you’ll have more time to really focus on work and have leftover time with friends and other activities.
Allow yourself to sleep in on Saturday morning, but don’t stay in bed as long as you can. Get up the first or second time you naturally start waking up, or set an alarm for a sensible time, like 10a.m. Have breakfast, take a shower, and get out of your room. Removing yourself from the temptation of sleep, TV and your computer will help you focus, so head to the library or a coffee shop to do your work. If your tasks are more open-ended and don’t have a clear-cut start and finish time, set a reasonable time to stop and let yourself enjoy the rest of the weekend, at least until Sunday evening rolls around.
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