Maximizing Your Holidays

Holidays are recurrent events in the life of everyone and it varies in duration and timing. While, we get regular weekly holiday, students also get regular or end of term/semester holiday. My observation is that many students waste huge opportunities for their growth and development in their holiday and that’s why this week on Student Groove, I want to share with you how to maximize yours.

Your holiday is not a time for sleeping round the clock, partying or careless use of time. It’s also not a time to waste because there is no school or responsibility to attend to. It’s simply a time away from intense academic activities that affords you adequate time for rest and gets you rejuvenated for increased productivity.

Holidays have turned out to mean different things to different people; but you can decide to make yours very productive and fulfilling. That requires deliberate plans and actions designed to invest your time and resources within your holiday towards a defined goal. Your holiday presents you with numerous opportunities such at time for adequate mental rest, self-development, skills acquisition and opportunities to refine your skills.

A holiday is a time in which you are at liberty to spend as you choose. Although what you do within this time is your prerogative, it’s not a time for total separation from learning. It’s not a time to waste. It’s not a time to spend without giving account of. It’s not a time to be totally irresponsible with your time.

The key to making the most of your holidays lies in getting at least a goal ahead of you, developing a plan for achieving it and taking steps to make the goals reality even before any holiday commences.

If you start your holidays without a goal of what you want to achieve, you may get carried away by the relaxation that the freedom from intense academic activities affords you. For most people they only realise that they have wasted the opportunities that holiday affords them when the time must have been far spent.

A holiday you don’t prepare for ahead of time will slip through your hands. That’s why I encourage you to start the preparation for your holiday by planning what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve them. Don’t just have a goal of what you want to achieve; plot how you will achieve it. Planning how to achieve your result will force you to appraise the possibility of achieving it within the time and resources at your disposal. It will also help you think through the process of attaining the goal you have set for yourself and develop a blueprint for its attainment.

Don’t fall for the temptation of trying to achieve so much within a holiday. Limit your goals to what you have time, resources and drive to achieve per time. I fell victim of packing so many things during my holidays because I wanted to milk the holiday of all the opportunities that is in it. But I have found that to be counterproductive. I ended up having so much to do that I lost the concentration required to get any one done properly. It’s better to have few goals and achieve them than to set many targets without reaching any.

Please understand that it makes no sense to have targets of what you want to achieve; plan how you want to achieve them within your holidays without getting everything required to achieve them down before you start. If you have planned the volume of your next semester course you want to cover during the holiday, be sure you have the materials you need to study. In the same vein, if you have planned to go for computer training, be sure you have funding for your training and possibly a computer for your practice. You shouldn’t just have a goal, you should plan but don’t stop at planning; arm yourself with what you need to reach your goal.

My point?

Maximizing your holidays takes deliberate effort and should not be left to chance. It’s a time that will never be recovered once it is lost and that’s why you should not let it slip away without making the most of it. The key to maximizing your holiday is having the consciousness that it’s not a time to be wasted; but invested. Decide what you want to invest it in and set it as a goal; plan how to achieve it and put everything you will need to reach your goal in place.