I’m a law student doing the whole school online during a pandemic. I am going to give you some tips. This isn’t going to be the Linkedin, I worked 80 hours, ran 3 marathons with my intermittent fasting children, and finally achieved my dreams being the CEO of middle management. We get it: just say you can’t find any meaning in your life and you regret your choices, like the rest of us. Stop shoving your 5 AM cold showers down my throat; I know you’re sleepy and uncomfortable. If you’re just starting school, you’ll be nervous about how things will be. How am I supposed to skip class and get drunk for fun when there are no classes to skip and you drink to… feel something, anything?

Schedules: this time, pretend you’re a CEO, and you’re your own personal assistant. Your personal assistant has to schedule everything you have to get done in the day and push you onto the next task. Mr. President, you can’t spend half an hour on the toilet scrolling through your phone. This isn’t easy. You have to audit your time and see where you’re hemorrhaging minutes. Then recalibrate and schedule again. But don’t overdo it. You know, live a little. Find the structure that’s just right, goldilocks. And you’ll be on your way to not feeling the existential dread your own psyche.

Next, the fundamentals: sleep, food, exercise… Anybody tries to take these away from you, I give you permission to vomit in their stupid face. Stop fetishizing all-nighters. It’s like being a boxer proving how hard they can get punched in the head – it’s hit and not get hit. I’ve been there. I mismanage my time and procrastinate because I have issues with motivation. Prioritize sleep, practice some sleep hygiene, stop treating sleep like it’s Keyser Soze. Diet and exercise are also key. Take a walk, eat carrot, try not eating Doritos dipped in cream cheese, no matter how much you hate yourself. Pick up some other good habits too: journaling, meditating, or defunding the police and eating the rich.

Work spaces. You’re going be sitting all day, so get yourself a nice chair and a desk to sit at. This way you can be productive while you mute and turn off the camera of your zoom meeting, and get some actual work done. Make sure you have a dual monitor. If you work on a laptop: don’t. Personally, I’ve had more monitors than I’ve had lovers, and I fully intend to keep it that way.

The final step is one even I, whose been social distancing for about the last 10 years, still struggle with: you have to find ways to be social. Now, don’t break social distancing protocols. Call your friends, go for a walk, or make helpful videos that are a thinly veiled guise for your mental breakdown that, frankly, was overdue.