energy levels and feeling defeated

[Tuilelaith]

I just started my Master's, I'm in my third week. I am in difficult classes that I don't have the proper background for, and I'm being told by my supervisor(s) to just work hard and it will pay off. I know that if I work hard enough to understand the material and do the assignments etc. I CAN do it. My problem is that I am just EXHAUSTED and there are never enough hours in the day to work that hard. My energy levels had dropped significantly since I am up at 6am and asleep by 2:00 am most night just to get the amount of work done that I need to do. Even so.. I am somehow still behind. I am taking 3 courses (technically 4 if a directed readings is included) and I TA for one class that has labs all day on every Monday. I'm having a hard time keeping up with all my work. I've been dead on my feet for about a week now, since it has all caught up with me and I can barely think straight.

How do you all keep your energy to finish tough coursework with a very busy schedule? I need tips!!

[anthropologygeek]

Take one day just for you. Either sat or Sunday. It helps. Also you will learn when to relax and when to work insane hours. Like. This week my ga is five 2 hour labs plus grading on Monday and Tuesday combined. I have an exam weds Thursday and Friday. So I'm exhausted but must keep going buy Friday night ill sleep and sleep some more

[UnlikelyGrad]

I just started my Master's, I'm in my third week. I am in difficult classes that I don't have the proper background for, and I'm being told by my supervisor(s) to just work hard and it will pay off. I know that if I work hard enough to understand the material and do the assignments etc. I CAN do it. My problem is that I am just EXHAUSTED and there are never enough hours in the day to work that hard. My energy levels had dropped significantly since I am up at 6am and asleep by 2:00 am most night just to get the amount of work done that I need to do. Even so.. I am somehow still behind. I am taking 3 courses (technically 4 if a directed readings is included) and I TA for one class that has labs all day on every Monday. I'm having a hard time keeping up with all my work. I've been dead on my feet for about a week now, since it has all caught up with me and I can barely think straight.

How do you all keep your energy to finish tough coursework with a very busy schedule? I need tips!!

I have a bachelor's degree in chemistry. I took a class in geology last semester and this semester I am doing more geology and microbiology!

Yes, it is hard. I find that I absorb things better if I don't study in big sessions--so, for example, I spent much of my bus ride last semester memorizing mineral formulas. For some reason they 'stuck' better on the bus than they did in my office or study space. Also, when I'm studying hard and find my brain getting tied up in knots, I go for a walk by the creek. Sometimes I try to think a bit about what I've just read as I walk, other times I just don't think about anything at all. Either way, I come back with a fresh mind/new perspective, and the exercise has helped me de-stress a bit.

Hope this helps.

[poco_puffs]

I have a bachelor's degree in chemistry. I took a class in geology last semester and this semester I am doing more geology and microbiology!

Yes, it is hard. I find that I absorb things better if I don't study in big sessions--so, for example, I spent much of my bus ride last semester memorizing mineral formulas. For some reason they 'stuck' better on the bus than they did in my office or study space. Also, when I'm studying hard and find my brain getting tied up in knots, I go for a walk by the creek. Sometimes I try to think a bit about what I've just read as I walk, other times I just don't think about anything at all. Either way, I come back with a fresh mind/new perspective, and the exercise has helped me de-stress a bit.

Hope this helps.

Re: walking,

I read an article a month or two ago that pointed out the benefits of light exercise, such as walking, on the ability for the brain to store and process new information. Not only are you going to wake yourself up if you are feeling a little sleepy (which happens to me), but you are also going to get the blood flowing throughout your body, including to our big ol' brains that just get so tired and full sometimes. Not to mention the fresh oxygen! It's like happy hour for your brain.

In my case, sometimes I feel so overwhelmed with things on that to-do list that taking time away to "exercise" seems like just another impossible task, but "exercise" need not equal a full workout. As Unlikelygrad has pointed out, sometimes just a little walk around the block or campus can help immensely. Maybe a 50 minute study/10 minute walk formula will help relieve the stress and do some mental perking-up without cutting into the study time, tuilelaith?

[fuzzylogician]

I think it's very important to learn to prioritize. I recently had a conversation about this with one of my favorite young professors and the picture that emerged was pretty much this: you need time off, otherwise you'll work yourself to exhaustion. You need to learn to say 'no' when someone asks you to do more than you are able to. And you need to decide which of your tasks is more important, which you can postpone or get away with doing a so-so job on, and which you choose simply not to do. I think it's better to pick something and do it well, rather than spread too thin and do a mediocre job at everything.

Time off is so important, if for nothing else then because it helps you work through material subconsciously. I don't know about you, I always have good ideas while I'm in the shower, or playing basketball, or cooking.. As was suggested, decide to take at least one of the two weekend days completely off. It's so important. You may find that you need to give up on doing something. First off, resign yourself to not always presenting your best work everywhere, life gets much easier once you do that. I've found that what works for me is to give up part of the readings, and maybe only skim - not read everything. Next, I sometimes hand in OK-but-not-brilliant assignments, just enough to get by. Same would go for end-of-the-semester presentations or squibs: I will continue working on projects that I am interested in, but I've learned that in terms of satisfying formal requirement, I should only do what's required and not more. And, I've learned to care less about TAing. I've learned that it's usually a waste of time to write long comments on students' papers, they rarely read them. I've also developed a grading system to minimize time spent on each assignment. I think it *is* important to come prepared for class, though, so I take the time to do that seriously. And I take my research very seriously. What's going to matter in the end is your research, not your coursework -- no one is going to hire you (or not hire you) because of how you performed in some seminar or other.

The first year is hard and there is a lot to catch up on, maybe you need to change your approach to studying. Maybe you can get some more support from classmates, TAs or professors? I know it's important to work through things yourself, but getting occasional help is also important and it'll help keep you sane. Is it possible for you to reduce your courseload? Three classes plus guided reading plus TAing plus catching up on background is A LOT. Could you still graduate on time if you postpone one of the classes that is not in your specialty to next year? If you can, maybe you should consider doing that. Otherwise all I can say is hang in there, it's hard but it'll be over sooner than you think!

[juilletmercredi]

-You need to get sleep. We tend to think that if we just stay up later and wake up early, we can get more done. You will actually be more productive if you get more sleep. I learned this the hard way, but no matter what I try to get at least 6 hours of sleep a night (and I usually aim for 8. I reserve the 6-hour nights for big deadlines.) You will have more energy if you sleep 6-8 hours a night.

-Start an exercise regimen. I know, you're like how the hell am I supposed to fit in time to exercise? Even 1-2 hours a week of low-impact exercise will change your energy levels. You'll feel more energetic and more focused on your work.

-The corollary to that is to take care of yourself. Eat healthily; keep a lot of options that you can grab quickly but that are still healthy (sandwich meat; salad stuff, etc.) Drink lots of water and avoid soda. If you keep your body healthy you will have more energy as well.

-As was already said - make sure you take at least one day for you. That's not to say that you'll never do any work on that day, but the majority of the day should be time for you to veg out and do whatever - catch up on your television shows, listen to music, laze around, sleep all day. Whatever. You'll look forward to that day for the rest of the week and you'll keep yourself pushing so that you can reward yourself. If you have no short-time rewards, there's nothing to work towards, so you lose motivation. I also like to reward myself with a little purchase every now and then - I love shopping. I am the most productive when I am happy and satisfied (and as I found out this summer, when I am depressed and unhappy, it has a destructive effect on my worth ethic). And like fuzzylogician said,

I come up with a lot of great ideas when I'm cooking.

-Also as fuzzylogician said, prioritizing is helpful. Fact of life is you will very rarely get everything done that's on your to-do list or that you know that you need to do. Select what the most important things are, and work on those first. Let the other things to the side. If you get an impossible soft deadline from a professor, discuss it with them (talking about side projects and not classwork). Remember the mantra of "good enough." I'm in a doctoral program so this is from that perspective, but in classwork you only have to do well enough. Save your biggest energies for the career-forwarding work - research, publications, presentations, fellowship applications. Find out what's most important for your career and focus on that as your first priorities.

[Pamphilia]

I hear you. It is awful, and I'm barely managing myself.

That said, one of the older grad students in my program gave me a piece of advice that seems helpful (we shall see in the long run): if you have, say, three or more classes in quarter/semester, you have to allow yourself a "blow-off class," emotionally speaking. That doesn't necessarily mean a class that you neglect or feel free to do poorly in, but one from which you allow yourself to detach emotionally; that is, one so that you won't feel tremendous guilt, sadness, anger, or frustration if you don't perform to your fullest potential. She said that doing this will allow you to open yourself to the classes you really do care about, the ones that are really important to your own work. Take one class in which you do your best, but leave it at that. You can't try to be perfect at everything (after a lifetime of aspiring to--though of course not actually achieving!--a level of perfection, it's very difficult for me not only to let go of that goal, but to realize that I simply cannot do it; this is really hard and there are some things that are just beyond my skill set right now, and I a very measly fish in a terrifyingly vast and impressive pond). It's impossible on an emotional level to throw yourself fully into three or more classes at a time. Well, actually, I'm sure there are some people who can accomplish that, but they are probably cyborgs quietly positioning themselves among us to prepare for the inevitable robot coup.

[timuralp]

Coming from PhD, my advice is skewed only because the goal for me was to pass classes vs excel in them. However, for me, finding some sort of hobby (be it exercise or anything else) that clears my head entirely has been crucial. It is impossible to spend 16 hours a day thinking about work and doing it, but taking a 30 minute to an hour break of doing something completely unrelated would often give me new ideas when I came back to the task at hand, as well as more perspective on how to prioritize better. I don't know if the add-drop is over or not, but it may also be good to consider if there is a possibility to swap classes for others that either let you combine the work (do one project for 2 classes sort of thing or at least one set of research work) or ones that are less open-ended and less time consuming, maybe?