This is it: the time when it seems like every professor, every research conference, every supervisor has come together to plot how to make these last few weeks a mad fury of papers, projects, sweat, and tears for us graduate students.

In the midst of this chaos, it is all too easy to let certain things – the less pressing papers, the cleanliness of our apartments, our mental well-being- slip by the wayside. In an effort to alleviate some of that relentless pressure, I present tips for the graduate student to keep their s**t together.

• Make a to-do list and put everything on there. The most empowering to-do lists are those which are a combination of tasks you hope to get done (write that report, make that call) and those you will get done anyway unless some catastrophic event occurs (i.e., see that patient, go to that class). With a to-do list like this, you check off more things and get a better picture of how amazingly productive you are, and that can be all the fuel you need to get more of the things done.
• Break down your bigger tasks. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a dissertation – when planning out your tasks don’t simply write in ‘dissertation’ but small, tangible goals that can be accomplished in 1-2 hour blocks (e.g., ‘write intro paragraph’; ‘find depression measure’; ‘draft Table 1’).
• Five minutes can be a damn good start to some things. We all know what the hardest part of a task is…. Getting started. Whether it is the first draft of an abstract, writing a few emails, or starting the blog post you keep meaning to do, using small bouts of time productively can really add up.

• Divide your priorities. My friend Sara has a whiteboard on her tablet which is color-coded: purple for projects she is working on, red for tasks with upcoming deadlines, green for things that need to get done but are not particularly pressing, and grey for things that need to be done but could be postponed. Attack accordingly.
• Keep a running tab of the little things you have to do. Ever been in the middle of reading a super-dense article, and suddenly it pops into your head: Crap, I have to do those IRB proposal edits before Thursday? Have a spot- on your computer or in a real-life notebook -where you can jot that down. Make a habit of reviewing it at the end of each night. Because you know as well as I do, by the time you reach the results section of the article you were reading, you will have forgotten all about that task.
• Schedule self-care into your organizational app of choice. I know it sounds pedantic, but seriously. Schedule a few hours on Saturday to do nothing, and stick to it. Research has unequivocally SHOWN how sleep deprivation hurts our productivity and we all lecture our patients about burnout; it’s time we take our own advice. As my cohort-mate Ben, who utilizes this strategy, says, “zombies are some of the most inefficient people I know”.
• Save mindless, but time-consuming, tasks for the evening (or whenever your mind is the most tired). I put together the references for my dissertation proposal together in a four-hour binge on a Tuesday night, while watching re-runs of The Office in the background. It’s a good task to do while your mind is shot, but you still want to be productive.
• Consider switching from late-night parties to early afternoon brunches. Okay, hear me out here. We all need to let off some steam during this time of year-(in fact, see #4, you should be scheduling it)…. BUT, parties that last late into Saturday night screw up the entirety of Sunday, and sometimes even Monday, as you attempt to re-align your sleep schedule. With brunches, the food is better, and your sleep schedule remains unscathed.
• Use all of the apps. Technology may be a curse in many ways, but such is not the case for graduate students trying to hold their heads above water. A few highly rated apps within my circle include MyStudyLife (which effortlessly combines calendars and to-do lists across all your devices), Anydo (an iPhone app which categorizes tasks) and Evernote (which creates interactive to-do lists). Of course, be careful not to spend SO much time planning and playing around with new technology that you forget to do the tasks at hand!

There is no way to make the end of the semester a walk in the park. But hopefully, with some of these tips, your end of the semester will be less of a run-screaming-like-you’re-in-a-horror-movie through the park.

What are some of YOUR favorite ways to combat the end of the semester craziness? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section!

Bio: Fallon Kane, MA currently serves on the APAGS Science Subcommittee. She is a second year student in the Clinical Psychology program at the Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University. Her research focuses on personality pathology and interpersonal relationships, and personality change with age. In addition to her research, she seeks to combat mental illness stigma on an individual and societal level. She can be contacted here (And shout-out to her cohort-mates Ben and Sara for their idea contributions for this post!)