Am I The Only One Who Gets Overwhelmed?
Act I. "This Crap"
Short answer? No, I'm definitely not the only one. But when it comes to separating my work life from my personal life, oh, I am so bad at it. Like, embarrassingly bad. I try, I really do, but somehow the lines always end up blurring and I'm left standing in the middle of a mess I didn't ask for.
And I want to make one thing very clear before I go on my little spiral here: I love Nursing. Genuinely, wholeheartedly love it. People walk in on what might be the absolute worst day of their lives, and the fact that you get to be there — that you get to help — that means something. That sets something in you. It's the most selfless thing I think I've ever chosen to do, and I'd choose it again.
What I would not choose again, however, is the additional coursework. You know the kind, the subjects that exist in theory but the instructors barely show up for in practice. No discussions, no guidance, just a pile of assignments dropped on your lap like "figure it out, good luck, bye." And we do figure it out! We always do! But at what cost? I'm sitting here putting real time and real effort into work that we're all secretly aware is going straight in the trash the moment the semester ends. Can we not be doing something more useful with that energy?
And then there are our Clinical Instructors, some of whom are absolute angels, by the way. The ones who actually show up, who make sure you get it, who genuinely care? I appreciate them more than I can say. But even on a bad day, they're still a thousand times better than whatever is happening in our other subjects. It's not even close.
So here's where the overwhelm really kicks in. I have group chats. So many group chats. One for every subject, every project, every random thing that needs coordinating and on top of all that, there's the informal section chat, which is supposed to be the chill one, but somehow that one has the most messages. I open it and there are hundreds of unread texts and I have to scroll up for what feels like forever just to find the one announcement that actually matters.
I am not a "tentative schedule" kind of person. I need "this is happening today, we are doing this today." Firm. Confirmed. No surprises. Is that so much to ask?
Oh, and one more thing about me, I don't really get attached to my classmates. I know. I know. The irony of a Nursing student saying that is not lost on me. But the extra noise that comes with it genuinely wears me out more than it grounds me, and I've made my peace with that.
We don't get to choose whether we take this additional coursework, either. Before anyone types "just switch" — we can't. So. Moving on.
I genuinely believe our brains were not built for this much information. I'm saying this as someone currently living proof of that statement.
Act II. My Digital Boundaries
Okay so in the spirit of trying to keep my sanity intact, I've built myself a little system. It's not perfect, but it's mine.
I have a work phone, an iPhone 7 I literally brought back from the dead, because I refused to let school bleed into my personal phone. We get reshuffled every semester anyway, so it made sense to just keep it separate. It's got the basics: MS Teams, Messenger, Google. Functional. Contained. That's the goal.
My iPad is mostly for entertainment and personal stuff, and sometimes a second screen. I tried the whole handwritten notes on GoodNotes thing and very quickly learned that I am simply not that girl, lecture slides move too fast and my hand cannot keep up. Laptop and Google Docs it is. I use Gemini and NotebookLM for quizzes and review, usually on the iPad, and honestly that setup works really well for me.
My Samsung is my personal phone and it is a sanctuary. Nothing work-related lives there. It's where I doomscroll, decompress, and exist as a normal human being. The problem is that I've set specific hours for checking my work phone, and every time I open it during those hours, I am greeted by a wall of messages in the informal chat, most of which have absolutely nothing to do with anything important. I don't mute it because our Class Head uses it for announcements, but everything that follows those announcements? Chaos. Pure chaos.
I think I need to start doing a proper digital detox on Sundays. My brain needs at least one day where it isn't pinging from notification to notification. I need to think straight. I need to breathe.
Anyway. Wish me luck out there, and have an amazing day, friends. 💙