How To Separate School & Home

Since starting online classes, it has been difficult to separate the time spent at school and the time spent at home. It can often feel like the two bleed into one another making it hard to enjoy either; however, here are 5 tips to help the transition between going to school and going back to your regular home life run smoothly: 

1. Take all of your online classes in one room. If you begin to move around the house with every new class, it can feel like you are constantly being followed by your school responsibilities wherever you go. While it is of course important to stay on top of your schoolwork, it is also necessary to make sure that you take time for yourself in these stressful and tense times.  
2. Have an activity to do for yourself at the end of an online school day. Whether you bake something, take a walk, or watch a movie, it is important to actively switch your brain from “in school mode” to “after school mode.” Having an activity after school will help you make a clear distinction between the end of your school day and the beginning of your time spent at home so that your work doesn’t feel like it’s consuming you. 
3. Keep track of your weekdays. I know that on a break it can be easy to forget what day of the week it is. In losing track of your days, your schooldays will begin to feel continuous. It is essential to keep track of when Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are so they can still feel like Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. It will help make online school feel a bit more normal. 
4. Have an organized planner. This goes hand-in-hand with #3. Keeping an organized planner with all of your schoolwork will help you keep up with when your classes are, what is due when, and how much free time you have. Scheduling out different times of the day to do your school work and to have “me time” at home will help create that distinction between school and home. 
5. Be conscious of your mood. By having classes at home, it can be is easy to let a bad mood influence your day both at school and at home. If you feel yourself sinking into a negative attitude, try to use your school time as an escape from anything making you anxious or stressed at home and vice versa. Hopefully this will improve your time in quarantine. 

I hope these small tips can help normalize your online school experience. I know that we are living in an odd time right now, but we will get through it. Remember that even though we are apart, we are still all in this together!