When you have a to do list longer than your arm, sometimes the easiest thing to do is nothing at all. Staring at a long list of daunting tasks and not knowing where to begin is a scary prospect, and I know that sometimes it's much more simple to place that list in the back of your mind and watch yet another episode of that TV show on Netflix. But ultimately that list is only going to be more daunting when you try to readdress it. It's not going to get smaller on its own, and although it may seem like there aren't enough hours in the day to complete everything you need to do, avoiding it all together is never going to help you achieve your goals.
When I was 16 I started to suffer badly with stress. I struggled to get the balance right between revising for all my different subjects whilst still maintaing far more extra curricular activities than I could possibly manage to squeeze in to my already hectic life. I'd like to say that as I got older I got better with managing my commitments, but if anything I am more over committed now than I have ever been, my ability to take on far more than I can handle is one of my greatest downfalls. What I have got better at however, is how I organise my mind and my life in order to deal with all these different deadlines at once.
My mum once taught me something called 'elephant burgers' (bear with me, I know it sounds like the weirdest concept, but it is something I absolutely credit for my ability to juggle so many commitments at once.) She told me that if someone told you you had to eat an elephant you'd never be able to manage it, the task would seem huge and you would have no idea where to start. If you just delved straight in and tried to eat it all with no plan you would just end up overwhelmed and unsuccessful. However, if you began to break your elephant down into small and manageable elephant burgers, it is much easier to comprehend as you are no longer staring at one giant task, but twenty more feasible smaller tasks. The point of the story is that if you just stare at the list of things you have to get done you will never find a way to approach it which doesn't fill you with dread. However, by breaking everything down and creating smaller timescales and deadlines for yourself it will be much easier to complete everything in time.
Remember, stress is not what happens to us, it is a response to what happens to us and response is something we can control. It's not your workload that's breaking you down, it's the way you've chosen to carry it. Learning to adjust that load is what makes all the difference. Worrying about workload or deadlines or exams will not make them go away, but it will stop you from appreciating the good things. Time is yours to do what you wish, and remember there is always time to chase your dreams.
A diamond is just a piece of charcoal that handled stress exceptionally well.
