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Here’s one more reason to appreciate finals.

This may seem a little counterintuitive, but I find exams to be the most relaxing time of the year.

I can almost hear university students spluttering in disbelief. How could I possibly think that the weeks of the year characterized by sleepless nights, gallons upon gallons of coffee, and frantic cramming are relaxing? Hear me out, people.

My rationale behind this is twofold. First off, I finally have enough time to dedicate to really mastering concepts. One of the biggest challenges I encounter with my academics is simply not having enough hours in the day to truly understand and appreciate everything in my courses. I simply rush from one week to the next, trying to get things done. For the most part, I end up doing pretty well, but I don’t really have time to organize my thoughts and develop my own ideas about what I have been learning in the classroom. With exams, since I am nose-deep in textbooks from sun up to sundown, I get to really drill concepts into my head and learn things thoroughly.

Secondly, I love the freedom that comes with exams. During the rest of the year I am frantically trying to juggle everything that I have going on, balancing my extracurricular commitments with classes, projects, quizzes, and a social life, but during exams all of that is put on hold. My calendar is blissfully blank, and I can spend my study breaks doing things I enjoy. I have a ready-made excuse to say no to any unwanted engagements or commitments that might come up (“Sorry, I can’t – exams!”) and instead, I get to made use of what little free time I have by watching Orange is the New Black, baking cookies with my boyfriend, or adventuring around Vancouver.

For example, this morning, I got up for an early morning breakfast with some fellow Vanier Residence Advisors. We left at 7:30 AM, just as the sun was starting to rise over Point Grey. We ate a delicious meal at Sophie’s Cosmic Cafe on W 4th as the sun rose, watching the first Vancouver snowfall through the window. By 10 AM, I was back on campus, snuggled up in a coffee shop ready to get down to studying. It was a short break from the books, but one that re-energized me and will keep me going for the rest of the day.

 #thebreakfastclub

I am telling you this to show that as stressful as the end of term can be, finals season does not have to be all doom and gloom. As with everything else in life, it’s just a matter of perspective.

Another term at UBC has come and gone, and finals season is once again upon us. As with every new school year, this one has brought a lot of changes, both personally and academically. I have been taking on more challenging classes, balancing more extracurricular responsibilities, and developing new habits. This year, I feel as though I have finally figured out an organization scheme that works for me. I have begun to harness the power of technology to help me get stuff done, and it has resulted in one of my most productive and stress-free years yet. So now I’m going to share some of my favourite productivity iPhone apps in the hope that you will be able to become more productive, healthy, and happy throughout final season and the new year.

Wunderlist: If you love to-do lists but are tired of constantly misplacing your handwritten Post-it notes everywhere, this is the app for you. It is a simple, easy-to-use app that allows you to keep a master list of everything you need to do. For each task, you can set a deadline and even add alarms to remind you to get it done. You also have the ability to break down larger items into subtasks – so you can break down “Study biology” into items like “Review September 21 lecture” and “Read chapter 12”. It also has multiple lists, so you can have separate to-do lists for each aspect of your life. I have Personal, Academics, RezLife, REC, etc. as my lists. It is a seriously amazing, and I have gotten a bunch of my friends hooked on it as well.

Grades 2: Have you ever found yourself attempting to calculate what you need to get on the final in order to end up with a certain mark in the course? I know I have, and in doing so realized that I have completely lost my math ability since first year (just kidding, I never had math ability to begin with). Luckily, Grades 2 does all the dirty work for you. All you need to do is input the different syllabus items and their weights, set a target grade, and update your marks throughout the year. Sure, it’s a little disheartening to see that you need 104% on your English final to achieve your target grade, but overall this app acts as a helpful and efficient way to keep track of your marks.

It’s Focus Time: The Pomodoro method is my preferred way of getting work done – essentially you work in 25-minute chunks, broken up by 5-minute breaks. This app is forever running in the background of my exam study sessions, and really helps me buckle down and concentrate. The key is to ignore all distractions when you are in work mode – I like to have a pen and paper nearby so I can jot down things I want to do during my breaks. Also, if you don’t feel like shelling out the 99 cents, you can still use the online version for free.

Dropbox: Dropbox is one of the best online storage tools there is. I have all of my school documents on here so I can access them no matter where I am – no more emailing documents to yourself before you leave home! I also download lecture notes and organize them into folders, so I have access to them even if Connect is down, and access them from my phone if I choose to leave my laptop at home. It also has a bunch of sharing capabilities so you can send your lecture notes to your friends no problem.

Google Calendar: While not strictly an “app”, Google Calendar is one of the best tools I have started to use within the past year. I am not exaggerating when I say it has straight up revolutionized my life. I used to have a huge problem with writing down an appointment, meeting or engagement somewhere and then completely forgetting about it by the time the day rolled around. That problem has disappeared now that I have my gCal synced up to my phone and can see what I have planned for the day no matter where I am.

Do you have any organizational tools you swear by? Share them in the comments!

Confession: I’m not perfect (I know, right? Most shocking revelation of 2012). Although I blog a lot about how important it is to take care of yourself, to eat right and exercise, and to find balance in university, I don’t always follow my own advice. The days leading up to my first exam, the dreaded CHEM 233 final, were super unhealthy and stress-filled. I was subsisting off of caffeine and UBC Food Services baked goods (the banana chocolate chunk muffins are a particular favourite of mine), spending every spare second thinking about chemical mechanisms, and even dreaming about carbohydrate cyclization. For five days straight I would get to the library every morning at 8:30 and leave when it closed at 10, taking breaks only to fill up my water bottle or to grab a massive coffee from the SUB.

On the morning of the exam, I woke up ready to log a few more hours of studying before my 3:30 timeslot. But after going over a couple of practice finals, I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I was physically and mentally exhausted. The chemical structures were starting to look like hieroglyphs, and my brain felt like the melted Stay-Puffed marshmallow man at the end of Ghostbusters 2. It was bad.

So with a mere couple of hours left before my exam, I threw on some Lululemon shorts, lugged my iHome speakers over to the Totem commonsblock, and turned the ballroom into my own personal dance studio. It was just the release I needed. Instead of agonizing over the steps of imine formation or trying to decide what reagent is required to convert an aldehyde to a carboxylic acid, I just needed to count to eight and try to nail a few fouettes. It reminded me of how thankful I used to be during high school finals when I had no classes but still had to go to dance every night. Dance has always been my stress release, and I miss being able to do it every day. After an hour of jumping, turning, and receiving a few weird looks through the ballroom windows, I changed into my exam attire, went to the SRC with my mind cleared of all stressors, and might have written the best final exam of my university career.

Find that thing that keeps you sane during finals season and do it often. Whether it’s running the Wreck Beach stairs, watching a movie with your floormates or hammering on the drums (like my girl Nirel), make sure your life doesn’t revolve around your schoolwork. It’s a stressful time, for sure, but taking an hour off won’t kill you. Just the opposite, in fact.

PS: Watching dance videos on YouTube makes for a pretty good (and dangerous) procrastination tool. If you’re into that kinda thing, check out some of my favourites here, here, here, and here.