10 Back to (Virtual) School Life Hacks

Back to school is very different this year.  It will be different for college students, school children, and parents alike.  Everyone will be wearing more hats, juggling more changes, and needing to find more ways to simplify their days.

We have compiled a list of our 10 favorite life hacks to simplify the process of going back to school (virtually) this year!

1. Don’t skip breakfast, but skip the preparation and clean up.  Use Soylent’s Cafe Mocha for breakfast and you’ll get your coffee too! All you have to do is open, enjoy, and recycle.  No mess, no fuss, lots of time saved.

2. Set a daily schedule and stick to it.  One thing school days give us all is routine.  Routine helps us be more focused and productive, but also allows us to have a healthy work-life balance.  Remember to schedule fun activities and breaks throughout the day and also have a hard stop time.  When you are done with work and school, be done until the next day!

3. Create screen free time.  When working virtually we spend all day in front of a screen.  Our meetings, work, school, and social time is all in front of a screen, so create opportunities to be screen free.  Put down your phone, step away from your computer and turn off the TV.  Instead you can listen to podcasts, meditate, play board games, or read.  Just make sure you have screen-free time every day.

4. Meal prep.  When you plan what you are going to eat for the entire week you don’t have to think about it on a daily basis freeing your time for other things.   But meal prepping doesn’t have to be cooking 25 meals at once, if you replace a few lunches a week with a Soylent Creamy Chocolate meal prep is as easy as opening the box and putting the bottles in your fridge.

5. Clean up as you go.  This may sound simple, but after months of being at home we have all had those days that the dishes pile up, the laundry isn’t done, and your bed isn’t made.  To avoid having to spend hours at the end of the day or week cleaning, just take 5 minutes per hour to clean and sort as you go.

6. Have necessities delivered to you regularly. Setting up subscriptions for your favorite Soylent Meal Replacement Shakes, as well as other regularly consumed household items like laundry detergent, toilet paper, and shampoo allows you to take buying those things off your to do list, saving lots of time and money!  When you subscribe you often get a discount too!

7. Separate your work and play space.  When you are working, studying, and living all in the same space it can feel like all of these tasks blend into one another, which is exhausting and can make it impossible to disconnect.  Try to have dedicated space for each task.  This doesn’t require a lot of space, it can be as easy as using one chair for school tasks and another lounging.  Just moving over a few feet can help your brain associate different spaces with different tasks.  When you get tired of the set up, change it up!

8. Eat balanced meals.  We all know that nutrition plays a role in both our mental and physical health, not to mention our immune systems.  As delicious and comforting as pizza is, eating it regularly may shortchange your body and brain when it comes to essential nutrients. Think about prioritizing healthy, complete meals, and healthy snacks during the week, but then let loose on the weekends and indulge a little! Reminder, every bottle of Soylent has 39 essential nutrients, 20g of plant protein, and both Omega 3 and 6!

9. Get ready for the day.  As tempting as it is to sleep in, wake up, roll out of bed, and start your day taking the time to change your clothes, wash your face and focus yourself on the day ahead will help you be more productive.

10. Get some sleep.  We all know we need between seven and nine hours of sleep per night and just because you aren’t leaving the house as much doesn’t mean that is not still true.  Actually it may be more true than ever, because sleep is directly tied to your immune system and overall health.