kate's guide: part two (habits).

hey friends! welcome back to my new series <3

• part one: my favorite productivity apps & how i use them

• part two: (this post) habits and routines for the school year

• part three: study tips!

• part four: meal prep (with my sister rachel)

• part five: not overdoing yourself!! balancing productivity & rest

i'm not an expert in any of these things, but i hope this series can give you some new ideas & motivation! these tips and apps have genuinely been life-changing for me and i hope they can be for you too :))

my habits and routines for the school year

weekly goals

this is a habit i’ve been doing for years and i love it so much!! as much as yearly, monthly, and seasonal goals are awesome, the best are weekly goals. goal commitments really maxes out at about a week in my opinion :)

how do i do it?

i have four categories (which are from my church goal program, but they are so good):

spiritual: taking care of your spirit! so for me, this is usually

• getting time in with God outside

• solid prayers

• time in scripture and taking notes from it

→ if you’re not religious, you could focus your spiritual goals on taking time to breathe, meditate, be outside, journal, etc. i usually put these things in the physical category, but they work in both!! so important <3

social: taking care of others around me

• time with siblings/family

• letters for friends, older friends, family, etc

• be more present (ex. don’t take my phone to lunch at school)

  
  

physical: taking care of your body

• going on a walk every day or working out

• putting my phone to bed at eight (so i go to bed early)

• only eating one treat a day

intellectual: taking care of your mind

• writing this week’s blog post

• working on my spanish

• making art

• trying a new recipe

these are just some of my examples, but i hope that helps! remember that goals are not tasks, but intentions of taking care of yourself and others. goals are here to push you, but in a healthy way (not at the expense of your wellbeing). personally, i think weekly goals like these are what serve as your foundation for building and maintaining strong habits. these habits are what allow you to be at the level to accomplish other great goals :)

also, if weekly goals are too short of an accountability period (like it’s easy to give up on goals), try syncing them with your monthly goals and having an incentive. i’m going to try doing this for november and have a sticker chart (like a little kid hehe) for my phone bedtime, walks & notes in scripture study! if i get 20/30 i will go to culvers :))

routines

nothing crazy. read my last post for my phone boundaries, as they shape my routines! i think the simpler, the better. no one has time to sustain a huge morning and night routine. consistency is much more important. 

some things i’m trying to implement in my routine:

morning:

• saying a prayer right when i wake up to start my day praising God and being grateful for the gift of a new day and being alive!

• doing breathwork in the morning to regulate and set the tone for the day: my therapist reminded me about the 4-7-8-2 (in 4, hold 7, exhale through mouth 8, hold 2) for two minutes and i have been trying to do it more!

• waking up early enough to have a moment to myself in the morning before it’s go, go, go

night time:

• like i said, putting my phone away early to have an earlier & more peaceful bedtime

• i would love to have time to stretch before bed but that is not a current reality :)

• a solid prayer at night for all my people with specific things for my people!

making time to be with God

if you couldn’t tell already, this is super important for me in lots of ways even productivity and rest! it’s super easy to read scripture on my phone fast or prayer quickly but i’ve been reminding myself to put more effort in to get better results! the peace of God is way more important than getting stuff done or sleeping more. time with God seriously recharges my energy so much.

also prioritizing walks! time to talk to myself to verbally process everything is essential for me.

rest !!!

one of my goals for senior year was to leave days free. this is super hard for me, but i’m working on having nights to read or watch a show or just go to bed early!! 

rest is also making time to be with people who recharge your energy :)

i think it’s important to plan in time to rest without your phone. it’s so easy to use insta as a way to reward yourself or take a break, but it’s not really true rest. there’s something so freeing about having time totally off your phone with time to just do a hobby or socialize or be with yourself.

sunday planning sesh

i don’t necessarily plan everything on sundays, but it’s good to have some kind of system to be updated on what’s coming up on the calendar, so you can plan everything else accordingly. sunday is when i also set my weekly goals and meal prep (coming in part four). 

as part of my faith, we treat sunday as the sabbath and i really try to honor it as the day of rest! i don’t do homework, hang out with friends, play sports, shop, read/watch shows, etc. it’s obviously a personal choice, and it can look different to different people, but i LOVE having a day to rest, plan, and have more time to be with my family and with God. church every sunday is such a grounding routine in my life and i’m very grateful for my church community and for the peace church gives me. 

i say this to give context to my habits and routines–if i didn’t go to church or treat sunday like this i would definitely try to do something similar to keep the weeks consistent and prevent the work from piling up every single day. everyone has a different life, some people have to work on sunday, etc, and this is not judging them whatsoever. just wanted to explain a crucial part of my routine and habits <3 

i would encourage you all to rethink your sunday habits and find a way to make it a day of a little more rest, however that looks! as humans we are not meant to work and grind every day & i hope you are making quality rest time in your life :)) it’s worth it fs. 

journaling

i’ve been journaling since i was little and it’s something i really could not live without. as someone with a lot of thoughts and experiences and opinions it helps so much to have somewhere to put them. i also love rereading my journals, it is so special to realize how much i’ve survived and overcome, as well as how many beautiful people have been in my life. i actually giggle so much reading them, apparently i think i’m really funny when i reread them :) obviously journals are such a precious treasure for your kids in the future, but also for yourself. as a processing strategy, it just gives me so much peace to write down the day before i go to bed. highly recommend!

my tips: 

• put your journal right by your bed. i used to write sitting on the ground but now i always write in bed haha. whatever works fr. 

• remind yourself it doesn’t take that long. it really doesn’t.

• write every day. if you skip days it gets so hard to catch up. this is my style, and maybe you just write sometimes, which is totally fine. but if you’re trying to do daily, try really hard not to skip and if you do, make it up the next day. if you skip a lot, just continue and don’t make them up (unless you really want to). 

• write what you really care about. your journal is not for your followers or friends or family, it’s for you. you don’t have to write about everything that happened, just write about how things made you feel. what you’re mad about. what silly little things made you happy. that’s what really matters in the long run <33

…and that’s a wrap!! take or leave any and all of it! i hope some of it helps you <33 let me know if you like these kinds of posts! your support means so much to me :))

see you next week when we talk about romanticizing school & studying!! 

xoxo, kate

pss i love love love comments!! they make me so happy! leave your name please so i know who you are :) thanks all <33