As lacklustre as the schedule is for uni compared to other facts of life, there are still elements of routine that you have to get used to semester in and semester out.

Your standard routine of snoozing through your 7am alarm for your 8am class only to wake up at 9am before going back to sleep would get the best of anyone. Let alone a 21-year-old comms student with a painful gin-induced hangover.

However, as semester two rears its ugly head, you need to get yourself back into the swing of things. Get on it. Now!

Start Waking Up At 7am Even If You Don’t Need To

This is like the equivalent of asking you to stick actual pins into your eyes, right? But hear us out. Despite the heinousness, waking up early has some benefits. For example, you’ll find yourself being a lot more productive because you’re wasting less of your day in bed and more of your day up and about.

Honestly though, go for a run and release those endorphins. You’ll feel so much more motivated and smash through your to-do list in no time. This basically means that you’ll have time to do whatever you want. Because the future is now and YOU WILL BE ORGANISED.

Get Yourself A Goddamn Diary

In case it wasn’t drilled into your head during the first few weeks/months/years of your uni career, a diary seriously works wonders. You wouldn’t believe how much difference making a simple to-do helps you get your shit together.

At the start of each day, write out all the things you need to do and check them off as you do them. Doing so will make you feel a sense of accomplishment, even if it’s as something as tedious as doing washing.

Cut Back On The Drinking Maybe? No, Like Seriously

We know how well a pint or seven go down during the uni break. But sporting a perpetual hangover isn’t really the greatest way to set yourself up for a stellar semester two. Reckon you need help? Here’s how to survive being the only sober person at the party.

You owe it to yourself and your liver to have a week off the piss until you get back in the swing of things. Once you’ve got your routine back, feel free to do whatever you bloody well please. That’s the beauty of being a responsible, well-mannered adult after all, isn’t it?

For Bonus Bonus Points, Buy Your Textbooks In Advance

This only applies if you’re one of those few blessed souls who, you know, actually buys textbooks in which case you are a greater student than I. This one’s a little tricky because a lot of people (i.e. me) wait to feel out the course to see if a textbook really is all that essential and even then a lot of people (i.e. me) still don’t.

Get ahead this semester, fam. If you don’t end up using it, sell it to an unsuspecting new student next year. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.

Buy Your Tissue Boxes In Bulk

When semester starts, so do the tears. You know that by now, surely.

Jackson Langford

Jackson is studying a Bachelor of Communication degree at the University of Newcastle and is the rightful heir to the throne.

(Lead image: Legally Blonde, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios)