The holidays are a stressful time, and they can be particularly stressful if you’re trying to find time to study for the LSAT on top of your various other obligations. Here are some tips to navigate balancing your study obligations with your social (and other) obligations this season.

1. Keep your schedule consistent.

If there is one thing I look forward to when I get a long holiday break, it’s the chance to sleep in until 2 pm, subsist on various holiday-themed candies and stay up until the wee hours with friends, or more often, just playing the Sims.

Not so if you’re preparing for the LSAT. While there will be some days over the holidays where you ought to enjoy the freedom of your relaxed schedule, you will be better off come exam day if you make an effort to keep a fairly consistent sleep schedule. You’re going to be much more prepared for the exam if you’re using your time to get yourself used to a study routine, or at a bare minimum, waking up sometime in the am.

2. Plan ahead.

A major bummer about studying over the holidays is missing out on the parties and other fun that everyone else gets to have over the break. And while the LSAT is a wonderful excuse you can use to get yourself out of the more tedious holiday activities, like caroling or pictures with mall Santa, you don’t have to sacrifice all of the events you look forward to to score well on the exam. Rather than pushing your studying to the last minute, make a note of the holiday celebrations you don’t want to miss, and give yourself a manageable study schedule around those.

3. Tell your family about your LSAT and law school plans.

No one ever complained about having a lawyer in the family. So if your relatives and/or loved ones are giving you a hard time about all the time you’re spending hitting the books, tell them about your goals, schools you’d like to attend, and progress on studying for the LSAT. For one, they’ll be reminded that you’re dedicating time toward ~improving your future~ which will likely encourage them to get off your back. And, failing that, if you go into enough detail about the minutiae of your studying process, they’ll probably avoid future conversations with you so that they aren’t bombarded with boring details again. Truly a win-win!

4. Plan some breaks into your study schedule.

No one can (or should) study for the LSAT 24/7, so for the sake of your mental health, you should be incorporating some down time into your study plan. Around the holidays, it works particularly well to combine your down time with other plans you may have; if you were already planning on taking a day off, you might as well take that day off when you’re stuck at your aunt’s house all day/planning to be incapacitated by a hangover/attending your friend’s destination wedding that was selfishly scheduled for New Year’s Eve.

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Overall, try not to stress too much about your study schedule during particularly busy periods. Find time to study wherever you can, but don’t beat yourself up if you’re not able to get as much done as you usually would. And, if all else fails, don’t forget that you can always suddenly come down with a terrible case of the “flu” and barricade yourself in your bedroom for a few days.