The summer holiday is usually a time where all school activities stops and the students are required to journey home until a new session commences. The vacation is expected to last on an average of 2-3 months usually from August to October. To some people, this is going to be a profitable time for them while to others it will lead to a BIG loss for them in almost every aspect of their lives like; spiritually, physically, academically and the list goes.

The big question is “How will I maximize my time in other to yield a profitable return?” this is the kind of question we should be asking ourselves at this period. This is because time actually does not wait for anyone; any day wasted can never be regained. 

In as much we have big dreams to accomplish, we still have roles to play in achieving those dreams and times like this should be set in accomplishing them or rather work towards accomplishing them. 

Time maximization can be effectively attained through the following ways;

Have a set of goals: This is of great necessity because for you to maximize your time this break you must first have something you want to achieve. Your goals usually flow from a pre-conceived idea that was gathered probably to solve a present problem or to prevent a future risk. It can also come from suggestions from a friend/mentor/superior/roommate, even as Christians God can lay some goals in our hearts to achieve. Just know that your goals must be based on a positive intention and never a negative one.

Write down your goals:  It is important that you have clear, precise, detailed, measureable and realizable goals written down personally by you. This has a psychological way of making us think more on what we want to do and also it serves as a check to our progress, it directs our actions every day and helps us to be focused on achieving them. You can write it in your diary or for the sake of convenience type it in the note on your smart phone where you can easily access it.

Have a laid down plan:  This is simply a pattern to achieving your goal(s). So many people do not get to this point, they only have so many things they want to do and yet they do not have a way of achieving them. The whole idea of a plan is to have a step-by-step approach/guide to reaching your destination. For example, if you have an intention to get new skills like tailoring, you must have a plan on how to get a sewing machine, a tutor and even the expenses involved in learning this skill. You can never end up in establishing goals without having a plan.

Regularly cross-check your progress with the time left:  This fact cannot be over emphasized. It is sad that many will have a long list of goals to achieve and end up not even coming close to fulfilling one of them. This is the main reason; they do not at least give it a break for a day to assess their progress and so they end up not accomplishing any of their goals. You can simply avoid this by taking time to assess yourself or ask for assistance from another person.

So, these are some ways of maximizing your long vacation break by having clear-cut goals that will add more values to you.

As a student, there are a whole lot of things to do in this break and these things make us unique as a business student. Here are some things you may consider doing this summer;

Learn how to use  software: Have you ever asked around to know that these days for you to have better chances of been employed in the future you must at least be a computer literate who must have good proficiency in using some basic software. People pay from their nose to learn this even at their inconvenience but you can learn this at this time. Not just learning them but being proficient in those areas, some of them include; sage 50, excel, Peachtree, ERP, MS-word, power point, Corel-Draw etc.

 Reading books:  There are lots and lots of book to read. There are books that develop our spiritual lives and there are books meant for career development. Books have a way of affecting the way we think and our perspective of viewing real life events. They are more like a summary of people’s experiences in a written form for our personal consumption. Please note that you do not read every book that you see, try and get book that develop you positively. you can download pdf books from www.pdfdrive.net 

Internship: This is also an interesting way of gaining practical experiences of what you have been exposed to. There are so many paid internship programs organized by companies for students that are on long vacation you can also consider unpaid internships which is equally beneficial as it will pave way for more advantageous connections.

Skill Acquisition : There are So many skills to learn at this period, that can even kick-start the entrepreneur in you. We have shoe making, tailoring, photography, bead making.  With the advance in technology learning these skills can easily be done at your own convenience, there materials online and videos to enable you learn.