Millennials’ and students’ mental health has always been a problem for them. It seems like they have to go through it all. They have to go through work, school, finances, family, friends, etc. It comes to the point where there is no room to actually sit down and think about what’s really going on in their lives. It’s no wonder why their mental health is always down. I’m no different as well.
As a millennial, I go through the same things as every millennial goes through. I go through depression, stress, and anxiety at times. These are things that millennials have to deal with at a consistent basis without much time to prepare for when the worst happens. It’s no different for a student as well. Students’ mental health has gone down over the years. About 75% of mental health conditions arise around the age of 24.
After all, life is hard. No one has ever said that life was easy. Don’t you wish that there was an “easy” button that you can press when times get tough. You just press the button and times magically slows down and gets rid of your common mental health issues. Just sitting back and relaxing or chilling with your friends. That sounds really nice doesn’t it? What if I told you that life can be like that? It is true! I’m even going to use myself as an example.
Here’s a list of what I do. Note that some of the stuff, I don’t do on a daily basis.
- Crisis Counselor
- School (5 Classes)
- Work (Math Instructor)
- Two clubs at school (One is for public health, the other is for mental health)
- Social Media Team (AFSP)
- My Blog
- Musician
That sounds like a lot of things that I am involved with. The funny thing is this: I always talk about how I have too much free time on my hands. Now how is that even possible when I have this laundry list of things? Well, let me show you what you can do to improve your mental health.
Time Management
The biggest issue I see with students and millennials is time management. I have to separate students and millennials because they are two different things. For students, it’s balancing school, life, and potentially work all at one time. For millennials, it’s mainly just life, work, and finances. So many things are going at once, but most people do things without any preparation or even a plan. How foolish is that? It’s going to cost you more time if you don’t put in the time in the beginning. Millennials’ and students’ mental health would improve if they spent some time on time management.
Students’ Time Management
For students, I’m guessing that your time management goes like this. During Fall or Spring semester, you prepare your schedule for the upcoming semester. You finally get your class schedule set, so you decide to work around that. Maybe you work and go to school on the weekdays and have time to relax on the weekends. If that’s your plan, then great! You’re 50% correct. That’s a good way to manage your time, but what are you doing on the weekends? Are you just spending it hanging out with friends and having fun?
If so, you’re not spending your time wisely. Spending time with friends and having fun is great. However, that leaves most of you doing everything Sunday night because you procrastinated on your work and chores. That actually costs you more time because you have no preparation for the upcoming week. When you prepare for the week early on, you don’t have to worry about any sudden surprises and have so much more time on your hands. Who doesn’t love more time? It’s the only thing we can’t buy, so spend your time wisely.
Students’ Mental Health
You might be asking, “how do I prioritize my time and prepare for the next week? Good question! You should follow this easy and simple checklist.
- Prioritize Your Classes: What classes do I need to focus more on and what classes do I need to focus less on? Let’s look at my classes for example. I take Statistics, Child Development, Interpersonal Relationships, Abnormal Psychology, and Counseling. I rank them: Counseling: 45%, Interpersonal Relationships: 20%, Abnormal Psychology: 20%, Child Development: 10%, Statistics: 5%. According to this, I focus my time more on Counseling and less on Statistics. Students’ mental health will improve if they did this. It will give them a clear aspect of what to do for every class schedule moving forward.
- Prioritize Your Work Schedule: This one sounds obvious, but some people don’t pay attention to it. For example, you see that you have a long day at work for Tuesday. You shouldn’t plan anything else to do for that day. You should use that time for resting and preparing for Wednesday. Students’ mental health will improve if they started doing this if they haven’t already.
- Prioritize Your Weekends: This is something that no one does. It’s the weekend, right? Who wants to prepare for anything? What if I said that students’ mental health can improve if they did? Just take the first day of your weekend and plan out the rest of your weekend. Do all of your chores and homework that day, so you have nothing to worry about the remaining days. It makes your life much easier to handle and navigate.
Follow those three steps and your mental health will be okay. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should be something that you should seriously consider.
Millennials’ Time Management
If you are a student and a millennial, you are getting a two for one special here. Millennials are known as the “anxious generation” and it’s not really their fault. Millennials had to deal with the sudden rise of technology and social media, both of which causes serious problems for mental health. This article explains exactly why millennials have such a bad time dealing with mental health.
Millennials can follow the same time management steps that I explained earlier when I was talking about students’ mental health and time management. Here are a few points I would like to make for your sake. Your work might be prioritized, but your life isn’t. What I mean when I say life is: goals and your job.
Goal Setting
Have you set any goals for yourself to complete for 2019? I don’t mean those goals that have no effect on your future either. Planning on being in a relationship or losing ten pounds doesn’t count here. I’m talking about goals that matter. Here are some examples of goals that matter:
- Start my own business by the age of 24
- Save $3,000 in emergency funds
- Have a job that pays above minimum wage
- Attend workshops and seminars about the job that I want
- Network with at least 10 people this year
Those are what I call “SMART” goals. Goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable, and can be completed in a timely manner. If you do this, your mental health will improve. It will allow you to keep track of your time and manage it more wisely. You will take control of your time and not let time control you.
Final Words
Time management is the most important thing for millennials and students to improve their mental health. It doesn’t take a lot of time to learn how to manage your time. When you manage your time, you’ll be surprised at how much time has opened up for you. That’s the time where you enjoy yourself and have fun. If time management doesn’t work for you, check out this article for more ways to help you improve your mental health.
Feel free to comment what you think about this. Is there anything that I missed that you might add on here? I would love to know what you think!
