By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed.
I often see students take one of two approaches to their weekends:
They either ignore school completely until the stress and workload catch up with them, or they spend their weekend frantically catching up on everything they didn’t do during the week.
Neither approach is ideal – and that’s where a simple weekend routine for students comes into play.
Don’t worry – I’m not about to suggest a 10-step weekend routine that takes hours to complete. Plus, I’ve already created a Sunday Planning Routine for Students.
But if you’re looking for a way to lower your academic stress and avoid the Sunday Scaries, it’s a good idea to set aside a small part of your weekend to take care of some basic business.
In this article, I’m sharing five simple ideas for how to use just a little bit of your weekend to reduce school stress, stay ahead of your workload, and set yourself up for a smoother school week.
The 5-Step Weekend Routine for Students
(Note: This practical weekend routine is ideal for high school and college students.)
1. Preview Your Week
Estimated time: 5 minutes
What I’m suggesting here is different from a full weekly planning session. I do recommend weekly planning for students, but that’s a slightly more extensive process that involves filling out your calendar and setting up your whole week. (That’s for your Sunday planning routine.)
This is just a quick preview of what’s coming up.
Open up your assignment notebook or syllabus and look at what’s ahead for the week. Are there any big due dates? Exams? Appointments? Sports or family events that will affect your schedule?
Related Resource: 4 Ways to Use Your Syllabus to Get Better Grades.
That’s it. You’re just scanning — not planning. The goal of this step in your weekend prep is to reduce uncertainty, not build a full schedule.
Trust me: This simple action lowers anxiety more than you’d think. A huge source of stress is the “unknown,” and just five minutes of previewing your week helps eliminate that uncertainty. Therefore, I argue that this kind of mental reset is one of the most underrated parts of a good student weekend routine.
Note: This step of your weekend routine only works if you also have a weekly planning habit. If you have no regular process for managing your calendar (adding events, deleting events, etc.), then you will have nothing to “preview” in this step. My resource How to Use Google Calendar for School is one of the most visited blogs on my site.
2. Do a Brain Dump
Estimated time: 5-7 minutes
A brain dump is a terrific strategy for clearing your mind of all the swirling thoughts that are consuming your mental energy.
When you take some time over the weekend to process your thoughts, you not only provide closure for the previous week’s activities but you also gain clarity for the upcoming week’s activities.
A brain dump is different than doing a weekly preview (tip #1). In a weekly preview, you’re looking at your calendar, syllabus, task management system, and other sources of information. On the other hand, there is only one source of information when you do a brain dump: your brain.
Related Resource: My Full Brain Dump Tutorial
Definitely check out the resource listed above. It contains step-by-step instructions for a proper brain dump.
But generally speaking, here are the steps to a brain dump:
- Set a timer for 5 minutes.
- Write down everything on your mind (school tasks, things you’re worried about, errands, random thoughts, all of it).
- If you think you’ve excavated everything out of your head but you still have time left on the clock, keep thinking.
- Sort your list into three categories: Actions, Ideas for Later, and Worries.
- Put Actions in your task management system.
- Put Ideas for Later somewhere like Google Keep or your notes app.
- Cross off your Worries, as there’s nothing you can do about them (if there were, you would have identified them as an Action).
Even if you don’t do anything with your brain dump list right away, the act of getting it out of your brain creates space for clearer thinking and a more peaceful upcoming week.
3. Do Just One School-Related Task
Estimated time: 15-90 minutes
How you handle this tip will look different if you’re in college or high school. It will also look different depending on how much work you have to do and how busy you are during the school week.
Generally speaking, if you handle your homework during the week and don’t fall behind on your assignments, then you shouldn’t have to spend a lot of time working on schoolwork over the weekend.
Again, there are exceptions to this, particularly if you’re a student with a heavy course load and limited time during the week to work on schoolwork. But if you’re staying on top of your assignments, you can use anywhere from 15 to 90 minutes over the weekend to make some progress on upcoming work.
Here are some ideas:
- Make flashcards (with this strategy) for an upcoming test or quiz
- Rewrite your notes from the week so they’re more thorough and helpful
- Get ahead on your readings
- Outline an essay you know will be assigned because you see it on your syllabus
In this article, I share the top productivity secret of top-performing students. I highly suggest you read that full article but here’s the gist: Top-performing students with the least amount of stress make progress on work even when no one‘s looking. This type of low-pressure schoolwork is a cornerstone of a productive weekend routine for college students.
4. Reset Your Materials
Estimated time: 10 minutes
This is a soft reset, not a deep clean. Think of this step as clearing friction and resetting your space and tools for a more efficient week ahead.
Here are some ideas:
- Charge your laptop or tablet
- Clear out your digital downloads and desktop folders
- Toss out the junk in your backpack
- Do a clean sweep of your digital storage space (Google Drive, etc.) and make sure all your documents have decent titles
- Refill your pencil case with actual working pens
- Organize and file the papers in your backpack
- Do some basic email management
These are the little things that don’t seem urgent until you don’t do them. This type of work is what I call student admin work (short for administration). These are all the tasks that seem minor but that are critical to making every other part of your school life run smoothly.
This reset routine for students is simple but powerful because it helps you avoid small stressors that build up during the week.
5. Do Something That Actually Feels Restful
Estimated time: 30 to 60 minutes
Scrolling your phone doesn’t count. Neither does watching four episodes of something in a couch-rot marathon.
Real rest is something that resets your brain and nervous system. It gives you a break from effort — but leaves you feeling better, not zoned out.
Let me also make this point clear: Rest is not the same thing as sleeping until two in the afternoon.
The kind of rest that completes the ideal weekend routine for students is the kind of rest that fills you up, makes you happy, and makes you feel like yourself.
During the school week, you’re probably doing 1 million different things in 1 million different directions. You might be working a part-time job, spending afternoons at practice, spending three hours a day at rehearsal, obviously doing your schoolwork, and other kinds of obligations that are required of a student.
The kind of rest that’s meaningful and beneficial to your nervous system is both peaceful and invigorating. Only you will know what that means for you.
A few ideas:
- Go for a run
- Go for a walk
- Read something for fun
- Cuddle with your pet
- Play music
- Cook a meal
- Take a nap
- Go for a drive
- Watch a movie
- Bake something
- Call a friend
- Do something artsy
- Rearrange your bedroom or dorm room
You don’t need a whole day of rest to feel rested. Just thirty minutes of intentional rest is enough to shift your energy for the week ahead.
Final Thoughts About Weekend Routines for Students
It can be helpful for students to establish a weekend routine that gives you clarity for the week ahead, keeps you on track with your assignments, and makes you happy. You don’t need to overhaul your entire weekend to make this happen — even just a few hours spread out over Saturday and Sunday (yes, you can split these tips into two days) can make a huge difference.
This isn’t about school productivity for productivity’s sake. It’s about using simple school stress management tips to feel more calm and capable.
It’s not about doing more. In fact, it’s never about doing more. It’s about doing just enough — with purpose.
