Whether you're in college, balancing high school with skating or entering the adult world, life is crazy and quiet time is a blessing. Growing up the only child in the house, I hated quiet. Now getting a few minutes to do nothing is crucial to both my sanity and my health. This feeling of "nothing" can be commute time, like driving from class to practice or enjoying that much-needed morning coffee. I have a rule for myself: If I have an opportunity for myself to do nothing, I to take it. If I don't, then I make time. It can be anything from planning a weekend with friends to choosing to stop worrying about something you can't fix at the moment.

I'm not a self-care guru, but I do know the struggles of balancing academics and competitive figure skating. Taking time for yourself is key to self-care. It's important to find that balance between making "present you" feel good and not stressing out "future you" because you procrastinated. This means scheduling, so find something that works, be it a physical planner with stickers and pens or if you're more like me, Google Calendar works fabulously.
 
My Top Planning Tips

1. Syllabus week (first week of school): write down every assignment, every test and basically just everything listed on each class's syllabus into your calendar of choice. It will take less time than you think and it will save you unnecessary headaches during the semester.
2. Plan a week-and-a-half in advance: Let's say you forget to plan your week or you're taking a mental health weekend. That extra half-week gives you wiggle room because not everything follows a schedule perfectly. Also, professors change things, and you may have to add meetings or study group sessions. 
3. Color coordinate: meetings are blue, classes are pink, and skating lessons with one coach are green and another are purple. This makes things easier for your head to remember and comprehend.
4. Plan for fun: If you know it's your friend's birthday, schedule time for it so you don't have to stress about assignments. Do the same for holidays like Labor Day or Halloween.
5. Schedule "you" time: this can be a sit down not in a rush lunch, spa day, concert, yoga, meditation, grocery shopping, hike, sleepover or anything that will make you relax and forget about your troubles.

One of the biggest issues college students face is stress and anxiety. If you're someone like myself, who already is an anxious person, then you can't just let yourself get overrun with commitments. Planning is self-care for your future self. "Future you" will appreciate the fact that you wrote down a playbook to follow. Also, self-care grows. It's different for everyone, and you need to discover what works and what doesn't for you. Also, know that things will vary, plans will get jumbled and even though you wrote it down in five different places, you might still forget. Having no plan is much more stressful than tweaking an already existing one. 

For me, self-care is taking and making pockets of peace. My "me time" is belting out "All Too Well" on the way to practice and watching How I Met Your Mother in a rose bubble bath. For you it might be aesthetically journaling your thoughts or deep cleaning your room. It doesn't matter what you do for self-care, as long as you do it, because it is one of the most important things for any human being.

Courtney Bessell is a 2020-21 Collegiate Ambassador and a member of the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs intercollegiate figure skating team.