For most Hokies, winter break so far has been filled with holiday traditions with family, reunions with friends from high school and hopefully some much-needed relaxation after a long fall semester. However, after the holiday season, students have just over two weeks before they have to return to Blacksburg for spring semester classes. Instead of wasting this valuable time, there are lots of ways for Hokies to stay productive over winter break. One way to stay productive over winter break is to work on the little, but very important things that we may not get to during the semester. Updating your resume to include any accomplishments from the past semester is something that only takes a couple minutes, but we often forget to do it in the middle of a stressful semester. When you’re buried in twenty different assignments in the middle of next semester, you’re going to thank yourself for taking care of little tasks like these! Another way to be productive is to work on your mental health. College is a time when many students are in a near-constant state of stress. Winter break can be a great time to relax or work on new ways to stay stress-free during the semester. Start a hobby like yoga or meditation. Create a workout schedule that you actually like and will stick to throughout the year. Working on mental health can also be as simple as taking time to read a good book, letting yourself catch up on some much-needed sleep or spending quality time with someone you care about. It’s not quite spring, but you could still probably benefit from an end-of-semester clean-up. Clearing clutter will help you stay organized next semester. Getting organized around the house is another activity we often feel that we don’t have time for during the semester. Winter break is the perfect time to tackle that overstuffed closet or cluttered desk. Take a day to organize your space and donate or throw away things that are just taking up space. As an added bonus, it feels great to throw away old papers from last semester classes that you won’t need again. Winter break is a good time to analyze your last semester, good and bad aspects, and make adjustments for the next. Take time to reflect on last semester as a whole – your academic life, your social life, health, finances, job, and so on. What worked for you and what didn’t? Make a goal to eliminate any bad habits. Turning off the alarm for your 9 a.m. class seemed like a good idea at the time, but maybe now, after seeing your grade and realizing that you didn’t get anything out of the class, you recognize it was a mistake. Next semester, resolve to get out of bed — or, if you know yourself and it’s not going to happen, at least schedule later classes. Regardless of how you decide to spend your break, being super productive or just taking some me-time, the most important thing is to enjoy the break from school in whatever way you most enjoy.