How To: Multitask Like a True Academic Weapon

With the way that our student body is constantly simultaneously falling apart and chilling, we multitask more often than we think. For real, my brain — and my poor MacBook on the verge of imploding with its fan *screaming* in the middle of lecture — always has 1,636 tabs open at once. The weight of having five conflicting meetings, hundreds of pages of reading, and three papers due by 11:59 p.m. can be hard to bear, but it doesn’t have to be with flyby’s guide to multitasking!

Go tan outside while doing your readings

Spring is in the air, and that means that Harvard’s campus is going to come to life again with people soaking up the sunshine to melt their worries away (though when the spring weather will *actually* arrive is TBD…). You can lay out the iconic red picnic blanket you got on move-in day on the grass to get some sun while suffering through your readings. After all, if your brain is being fried, then your skin might as well get fried too. Harvard Yard may not be the same as the beach, but you can be a better tourist attraction than the John Harvard statue and photobomb all their pictures. Oh, class buildings are pretty close too, so it’s a great way to make use of the awkward gap between classes.

Go to a fitness class (or Trader Joe’s!) with friends

Squeeze in a cycling or yoga class while spending crucial quality time with your friends. Win, win. If the gym isn’t your thing, don’t you fret because you can still burn some calories running some SUPER necessary errands at Trader Joe’s with friends (a.k.a stocking up on their new spring must-haves, including strawberries and cream gelato, cheddar jalapeño bread, coffee and dark chocolate sandwich cookies, and ruby cacao figs). Their tulips are also beautiful and would make a great pop of color in your suite. Student by day, stellar decorator by night.

Pregame and pset

One thing that’s for sure is that everyone always has a growing pile of assignments. Try scheduling a block of time in your GCal for your friend group to get the best of both worlds by studying while enjoying some drinks and food. Then, you get to feel accomplished when you put away work for the day and see where the night takes you. Submitting a problem set is a fabulous reason to party hard ;).

Call your family and long-distance friends while walking

Wish you could talk to the people you love more? Great news: you can. Take advantage of the new and improved weather by calling your loved ones while heading to class (especially if it's at the SEC) or strolling along the Charles River. As a bonus, you get a much-needed boost of serotonin when you get to see dogs on walks. If that’s not self-care, I don’t know what is.

Binge YouTube while folding laundry

Folding laundry isn’t exactly entertaining and can be quite time-consuming, so it’s the ideal time to go down a YouTube rabbit hole guilt-free. Remember, it's not wasting time if you’re doing chores at the same time! My personal go-to side of YouTube is the world of dramatic The Bachelor and The Bachelorette clips because I have a hard time committing to watching the entire seasons :(. Another plus is that YouTube videos are short and sweet, so they are suitable for our shrinking attention spans. You deserve the mental break for a while, and I hope that you are able to find all of those socks gone astray.

Multitasking more efficiently can help us work smarter, not harder (or just do a mediocre job at everything… but isn’t that a risk worth taking?!). As long as it’s not responding to a discussion post while riding a BlueBike, I don’t see the problem. We don’t condone texting and driving, but we do condone wise time management through multitasking.