How to Make the Most of Winter Break as a College Student or Adult Learner

For most students, winter break is only about two weeks long, but that doesn’t mean you can’t accomplish a great deal during this time.

Did you know that the more time we allot ourselves to complete a task, the longer that task will take us? It’s true, and this phenomenon has a name: Parkinson’s Law, which is based on the idea that “work expands so as to fill the time which is available for its completion.”

Let’s make sense of this concept with an example. According to Parkinson’s Law, if you give yourself one month to clean out your garage, you’ll finish cleaning out the garage within a month. However, if you tell yourself you only have two weeks for the same task, you’ll finish the job within two weeks’ time. 

This winter break, use Parkinson’s Law to get more done. Whether you’re a college student or an adult learner, follow these steps to achieve your learning goal.

1. Start by setting SMART goals

Goal setting is an important habit for people of all ages. MindTools tells us, “If you want to succeed, you need to set goals.” The reason? Goal setting is a means of taking “control of your life's direction.” And there are intelligent ways to go about doing so. 

This is where the acronym “SMART” comes into play, which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Goals that have all five of these characteristics are the most likely to be met. 

Based on the SMART acronym, can you spot what’s not ideal about this goal? 

“I will improve in German.”

This goal has two main issues: it is neither specific nor time-bound. The goal should spell out what the person will do to achieve it and by when (i.e. the deadline), or over what course of time. This same goal could be revised to adhere to the SMART guidelines in the following way:

“I will improve in German by learning 10 new German verbs each week.”

Creating SMART goals at the beginning of your winter break is the first step to ensuring you make productive use of your time and have a clear vision for success.  

2. Assess your starting point

Recall that the M in SMART stands for measurable. The reason that goals should be measurable is so people can verify, through one metric or another, that they are advancing toward their objective. 

However, to be able to measure progress, your knowledge or skill level must be evaluated at the start of the endeavor. A baseline can be established in a variety of ways—for example, by taking a diagnostic test or  initially writing down everything you know about a topic. Keep your results in a safe place for later review. 

Don’t worry if you underperform on the exam or have little to write down about the topic. This challenge is a learning experience. 

3. Practice digital well-being

With 96% of American adults owning a smartphone, it can be hard to avoid the distractions of technology. While smartphones are vastly convenient for emailing, researching, and completing other academic to-dos, when your goal is to buckle down and study, your cellphone can hinder your progress.

Luckily, though, the most common smartphone brands come with preinstalled “digital well-being” apps and settings that can help you stay focused. On Samsung Galaxies, for instance, you can choose which apps you want to receive notifications from while you’re working, studying, or having personal time. 

All you need to do is categorize the apps you will access for each aspect of your day (e.g. “work time” and “me time”). Another possibility is to activate app timers that will let you know once you’ve reached the designated daily time limit for each application. 

Even if your phone doesn’t come with these features, be aware that you can download an equivalent digital well-being or screen time reduction app.   

4. Check in with yourself

Once you’re underway with your learning goals, check in with yourself at predetermined points to see whether you’re staying on track. For most people, “checking in” will simply entail having an honest conversation with oneself. 

Given that winter recess is only about two weeks long, you should introspect at each quarter of the break—that is, at the half-week mark, the one-week mark, the week-and-a-half mark, and the two-week mark. (Note that evaluating yourself more regularly than this may not be helpful, as one or two days may be too soon for progress to manifest itself.) 

The half-week mark is especially critical because it is a chance for you to make changes should you find your current approach isn’t working. By the halfway point, you should be making noticeable strides.  

5. Evaluate your overall progress

As winter break comes to an end, repeat the same diagnostic activity you did initially and compare your results. Seeing that your test score has increased or that you now have much more to write about a topic can boost your confidence. 

While you still may not have earned a perfect test score or know everything you could about the topic, you surely made some amount of progress—and that deserves recognition. 

Be reasonable with yourself as well, remembering the adage, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Just imagine how much more you could achieve in another month.

Tiffany Sorensen holds a Master of Science in Spanish-English Translation from New York University. She works remotely from sunny Mexico, where she gives English and Spanish classes, writes educational articles, and designs practice tests for the ACT.