Sing Play Survive

Download the printable checklist

Congratulations, you made it to winter break! Now what are you going to do with yourself for the next few weeks? Yeah, see that’s the problem. Colleges are nice enough to give everyone time to recover after finals, but since you’re so used to being busy all the time, you don’t know what to do with yourself when you come home for break.

Well, to help fix your boredom problem, I put together a biiiiiiigggggg list of things you can do to keep yourself busy over break. Since this is blog about not only surviving music school, but kicking its sorry little butt, I focused this list on all the things you should do to to be really really really prepared for the coming semester. It might be a bit of work now, but If you complete it, you can count on heading back to school more prepared than the world’s most gung-ho boy scout. Invest a little time now, so that you don’t feel slammed through the whole next semester.

I also made a printable .pdf checklist of the whole thing, so you can track your progress as you go. Download it here, and get to work!

Fun

• This is a pretty “serious” list, so don’t forget to visit with all your friends. Relax, party, socialize, and connect with people. When it’s March and you’re stuck in a practice room for 6 hours a day, you’ll wish you had socialized more.

• Spend some time with your family. I know they can bug you, but they’re also an important piece of your emotional health. Don’t go home and isolate yourself for three weeks.

• Go to a concert. You spent the whole Fall performing, now get out to a concert, sit back (or jump around, depending), and enjoy watching someone else do all the work.

• Find a new hobby or campus club to get involved with. If you do everything else on this checklist, you’ll be better prepared for the spring, and you’ll have some time in your schedule. Don’t “wait and see” if you have time, because if you think like that, you never will. Find a club, and email the president so that you can’t back out on yourself.

• Visit a museum. You can always find something fun there.

• If you’re really bored, it’s not too early to start making plans for spring break. Decide if you’re going to go somewhere or stay home, and then find something good to do with that time.

• If you’re really really bored, read every post on this site (there are only 22 as of now, so it should be too bad).

Health

• Find a fitness routine that works for you, and start doing it. Learn the exercises now so that you feel comfortable and don’t have to fumble through them during the semester. If you get in the habit of working out now, you’ll probably have a better time sticking to it once things get busy. And, if you’re out of shape, you can deal with the initial soreness while it won’t interfere your practicing as much.

• Learn to eat better. I’m not talking about going on a diet. Just learn some general rules for healthier eating, and set some basic goals like, “I’ll only eat french fries once a week” or “I’ll eat a fruit and a vegetable at two different meals each day”.

• Sleep in at least one day a week. Come on, it’s break. You shouldn’t work too hard!

• Visit the doctor if you have any health concerns. A lot of students ignore runny noses, coughs, sore joints, stomach aches, etc. in the weeks leading up to finals because life gets busy. As a musician, you really don’t want to do this, ESPECIALLY if any of the symptoms could be part of a music-related injury. Make it your goal to diagnose and address any problems before heading back to school. You should start the spring off feeling healthy and ready to go, not wishing you had a few more days to recover from the flu or let your sore wrist get some rest.

• Pamper yourself. Get a massage, do some stretching, get a hair cut, and whatever other non-essentials will make you feel good about going back to school (as long as you can afford them). It seems silly, but all of these can become distractions if they’re not taken care of.

Life

• Spend at least 30 minutes outside every single day.

• Do your laundry. Please don’t go back to school with a bag full of dirty clothes.

• Take any dirty performance clothes to the dry cleaners. No one wants to perform next to the guy with the musty tux or the gal with the dirty dress.

• Make sure you have whatever clothes you need to get through the winter months.

• Catch up on Facebook. Respond to every single person who contacted you during the semester that you were to busy to write back. When you’re done with that, write at least five old friends you haven’t heard from recently

• Catch up on news.

• Read a book.

Money

• Set a budget for the coming semester. Figure out how much money you will have, and  then make a list of all the things you’ll have to pay for (don’t forget about one-time expenses like conferences, audition fees, etc).

• If you’ve never set a budget, make it a new year’s resolution to take control of your spending. Take a look at a website like Go College. They have great resources on personal finance for students.

• Find a seasonal job, or look for odd jobs – It can be hard to find an employer who wants to hire you for a few weeks, so try to make some money putting your skills to good use. See if any school districts need substitutes, shovel some driveways, offer your services as an interior painter, or see if you can make some money doing instrument tune-ups! If you had a summer job or high-school job that you liked, don’t be afraid to ask if they’ll give you some hours. Many employers are happy to have a little extra help this time of year, but it’s not worth it for them to train new employees.

• Cut coupons for groceries and other supplies. I know it sounds like something your grandma does, but there are times when I’ve used $15-20 worth of coupons on a 50 dollar purchase. Unless you’re rolling in cash, get the Sunday paper and clip away!

• If you perform with any groups on campus, find some paid gigs for the spring semester, and start promoting them now.

• Go through all of your old textbooks, and sell the ones you don’t need on a website like Half.com. Once you get a username set up, you can list a book in about five minutes. I used to do this, and they usually ended up selling for almost the same price I paid. A couple of books even left me with a profit. If you sold your books back to the campus bookstore, remember this tip for the end of the spring semester.

Organize your digital life:

• Clean your email box. Delete everything you don’t need anymore, and put the rest into folders by category. Head back to school with nothing in your inbox.

• Set up an email folder for each class, so you can KEEP your inbox empty.

• Clean your address book. Remove all the people you’ll never talk to again, like lousy professors, or partners from group projects.

• Clean out your iTunes library. If you had a few too many listening assignments or “music sharing” parties, trash all the stuff you’re never going to listen to again–because you’re NOT going to listen to it again!

• Clean and organize your hard drive. Delete unimportant assignments and notes, and file the rest away for safe keeping. Clear old icons from your desktop, and clear out your downloads folder.

• Clear old junk off your cell phone, iPod, PDA, or other mobile device.

Organize your real life

• Consolidate, condense, or discard old class notes and homework assignments. Be aggressive: you’re never going to look at that music theory worksheet again, so chuck it! (please recycle if it’s an option in your area).

• Clean out your backpack, purse, wallet, instrument case, and music binders.

• Enter your class/rehearsal schedule into your calendar (paper or computer).

• For every day of the week, outline a schedule that you can follow so you know how you’re spending your time. It should include class times, meal times, practice times, study/homework times, fun time, and flexible time. You might not always be able to stick to it, but if you try to strategize now, you’ll feel more in control of your time later.

Get your instrument in tip top shape

• Perform a full tuneup – Don’t wait until problems arrive and things break to pay attention to instrument maintenance. Address any repairs now in case you have to leave your instrument at a shop for a few days.  Check it for loose parts, sticky keys and valves, dents, worn out pads, damaged strings, etc. Fix, tighten, or replace anything that’s not quite right. Now is a good time to change strings as well, since you’ll have a couple weeks to break them in.

• Clean, polish, and protect – Do a thorough internal cleaning of your instrument (if possible) and clean/polish all the visible parts as well. In a couple of hours, you can often bring a tired instrument back to almost new condition. It usually feels better to play on nice-looking equipment, so clean it while you can.

• Clean and repair your case – open all the compartments, clean out any garbage or old papers that have accumulated, vacuum the inside, wash/clean the outside, and if it’s starting to smell a little funky, put a small box of baking soda inside for a few days. If you have broken hinges, latches or wheels, loose padding or linings, or any other problems with the case, fix them or take them in for repair.

• Make sure your accessories are in working order – Now is a great time to fix all the other equipment problems that annoy you, distract you, and cut into practice time. Check/change your metronome batteries, tighten loose parts on your instrument stand, replace old music binders and worn-out folders, etc.

• Make and break-in reeds – Give yourself an ample supply so you’re not scrambling during the semester.

• Take inventory and order any other supplies- Make sure you have reeds, drumsticks and mallets, pencils, a pitch pipe or tuner, and anything else you need.

Practice

• Review the comments from your final lessons, jury, or recital. If you haven’t set goals with your private lesson instructor for the coming semester, do so now.

• Get out your calendar and break up those semester-long goals into weekly and monthly milestones. Don’t worry about daily goals until the week of, because it can get a little tedious.

• Find the goals that will take the most time to accomplish, and start working on them over break.

• Spend at least half of your practice time on break having FUN with your instrument. Play some music that’s different from what you worked on last semester or what you’re going to work on in the spring. Teach yourself to improvise or play in a style you don’t know very well.

Academic Prep

• Email all your professors and ask for the class syllabus. Tell them you want it so you can look for cheaper books online.

• When you get it, make a list of books, and order them on the Amazon.com Textbook Store, half.com, or another discount site. You’ll save a ton of money! Consider having them shipped to your school address if you don’t have space to bring them back with you or if you’re ordering close the date you’re returning to campus.

• Look over the course requirements. If anything looks especially challenging, spend a little time researching the topic on Google, so that you have some extra resources for the semester, and so that you’re familiar with the material before hand. There’s no reason you should wait until the first day of class to engage your brain with a new subject. If you feel more confident with the class material going in, It will free up a lot of time during the semester, because you won’t have to study as hard to understand it. DO NOT start working on homework assignments and papers listed on the syllabus. It’s super-nerdy and it’s a waste of time for more reasons than I want to talk about here. Plus, you need a break!

• If you’re in a Music Ed program, schedule some visits to schools to observe teachers. Many states require a minimum number of observation hours, and winter break is a great time to knock some of them off. Make it a goal to complete them all during various breaks, so that you never have to fit them in during the semester.

Other

• If you have a car, catch up on any maintenance. Wash it, have the oil changed, put air in the tires, and bring it in for repair if you need to.

• If you rent an apartment and you are staying in it over break, this is a great time to clean it and put that plastic stuff on the windows.

And if you STILL have time left over, tell me what you’re doing in the comments.