#1 Tip for students at end of semester

Parents and teachers, what’s up? This one is for middle school, high school, and college students.

I’m going to give students one tip today—my number one most important tip for what I call “Hail Mary Time.” If you’re a student who tends to wait until the last minute, and you’ve got exams, papers, and all kinds of assignments piling up at the end of the semester, this video is for you.

What’s up? My name is Seth with SethPerler.com. I’m an executive function coach based in Boulder, Colorado, and I help struggling students navigate this thing called education.

At the end of the semester, I call it Hail Mary Time, and this is what’s going on right now: the time between when Thanksgiving break ends and when winter break begins. That period right there is Hail Mary Time.

The reason I call it Hail Mary Time is because, in football, a “Hail Mary” is a play that happens in the final seconds of a game when your team is losing. The receiver runs far down the field, the quarterback throws a crazy pass, and somehow the receiver catches it, scores a touchdown, and wins the game in the last seconds when it seems impossible.

That’s what we want here.

When you have a lot of missing work, incomplete work, late work, and zeros, your grades are down, you’re not motivated, you’re exhausted, and you just want winter break so badly. You want it all to be over. You’re sick and tired of class.

But not only do you have all the makeup work—you also have your current work. During this Hail Mary Time, after Thanksgiving break and before winter break, you’re dealing with both.

And on top of that, you have what I call PEPR:

* Papers
* Exams
* Projects
* Readings

The problem is that these things are huge.

So you’re dealing with a mountain of makeup work. You’re trying to swim upstream and catch up. You’re thinking, “Mom, Dad, leave me alone. Get off my back. I’ve got this.”

But your grades continue to fall.

And not only that, you’re about to get hammered with these final assignments, and they require a lot of time.

So I have one tip for you—my number one best tip during this PEPR time so that you can win the game.

Winning the game means passing your classes, not having to retake them, not having to go to summer school, and avoiding all the stress that comes with falling behind.

My one main tip is this:

Be honest with yourself.

I struggled tremendously with executive function when I was a student. In order for me to be successful—and in order for many of the students I work with now to be successful—you need to understand something:

Your brain is going to be unrealistic about the amount of time and energy required to do what you need to do to finish the semester.

I’m going to say that again.

Your brain is going to be unrealistic about the amount of time and energy required for you to do what you need to do in order to finish the semester on a good note and win the game.

I don’t even know if I introduced myself properly. My name is Seth with SethPerler.com. I’m an executive function coach based in Boulder, Colorado. It’s super snowy today—we got almost two feet of snow the other day. It’s amazing. It’s beautiful.

Anyway, here’s the tip.

If you’re honest with yourself and say, “Okay, yeah, that’s me. I am unrealistic about the amount of time and energy things take. I wait until the last minute. I stress my parents out because the night before my giant semester-long project is due, I’m suddenly panicking at 8:00 p.m.”

If you can honestly say that, then great.

Now the question becomes: what do you do about it?

Here’s where the tip comes in.

Since you’re unrealistic about the amount of time and energy required, you need to plan way more time and energy than you think you’ll need.

That’s the tip.

Plan way more time and energy than you think is necessary.

My general recommendation is to plan anywhere from three to ten times more time than you think you’ll need.

If you think a final project is going to take two hours, plan on six to twenty hours.

If you think studying for exams is going to take ten minutes a night, plan on thirty minutes a night.

If you think something will take two nights, plan for six nights.

You get the point.

Way over-plan.

Block out large chunks of time.

Look, it’s Hail Mary Time. In a real football game, when it’s Hail Mary Time, the team puts everything into those final moments. They’re giving 110%—everything they’ve got and more.

I know you’re tired. I know you’re ready for the semester to be over. I know you’re looking forward to break.

But put that last burst of energy in.

Are you actually going to work three to ten times more than usual?

No.

The reality is that you’re probably not.

But if you plan that way, knowing you won’t fully reach that goal, you’ll still do much better than if you underestimate the workload.

You’ll put yourself in a much better position to pass your classes, do well on your exams and projects, finish the semester strong, and win the game—if we’re sticking with the Hail Mary metaphor.

So with that, my name is Seth with SethPerler.com.

I hope you have a fantastic winter break where you can relax, know that you’ve done your best, be free, take a deep breath for a couple of weeks, and enjoy yourself.

Have a great day, and I’ll see you soon.