It’s currently 1am; the deadline is 9am. If you work at maximum efficiency, you could be in bed by 4am. Upon further reflection, 5am is looking more realistic. What option should you take at that moment? You could choose to push through until completion, at detriment to any semblance of sleep schedule that might remain. Or you could send an email to your tutor with a brief and unspecific reference to the woes you have faced and call it a night, but know the work will likely be left lingering for later completion.

I think that in this scenario, and in many other moments of decision, the lack of a clear-cut answer is why managing expectations can be so hard. Although many students across the world face this conundrum, it is one that those at Oxford seem to encounter all too often in our condensed, often tumultuous terms. I would say that external expectations from those that are setting the work have less of an influence than what you might expect. Rather, it is the management of internal expectations that really comes to the fore when you are neck deep in the Oxford term, particularly when many of us have held ourselves to such high standards up until this point. I would like to make the case that getting these decisions wrong trains our interoception. That is how we can find the balance we need to achieve in order to keep our mental health in check whilst pushing ourselves sustainably, as I will explain.

In our hypothetical scenario, you could already be on a warpath to make sure you never miss a deadline. It may seem like a no-brainer that you would pass up on sleep in order to make sure every box is ticked. It may stem from stubbornness, or perhaps the fact that you are yet to miss anything and it seems such a shame to mess up that track record. In that case, it is likely not the first time this has happened, and you’ve got less than 5 hours sleep for 3 consecutive nights. You may ask, as someone so determined not to miss anything, why is it the case that you find yourself in this predicament? Perhaps you even made a detailed schedule for how you were going to achieve it all. However, you may not have factored in that your friend was having a hard time so you chatted away with them for a while and offered your support. Or you may not have accounted for the fact that the hour-long lecture took you an hour and a half to watch, because you found the content much more challenging than anticipated. There are so many different pulls on our time, and it is very difficult to be consistently accurate in predicting how long things will take, particularly as there will almost always be a spanner (or many) in the works. The risk of enforcing an unconditional goal of hitting every single deadline is that we subordinate some of our basic needs too often. It also creates a very damaging false narrative, that if we eventually do miss one we have failed and are deserving of condemnation. 

Of course, there will always be that person who seems poised and never has to work late. But they may not have the same responsibilities as you, and we are all on different paths; these comparisons are unhelpful. For the most part, keeping your head above water at this university is difficult. I remember being told by some older students before I arrived that there isn’t even an expectation from tutors to finish every item of the reading list, or to achieve a first from day one. This is why it is so important that we cut ourselves some slack and remember how far we have come. You can finish it off once you are beyond a pinch point or, where possible, pick it up again in the vac. Days don’t often go to plan here, never mind a week or an entire term. We are not machines, and if we try to treat our bodies and minds like we are then we can make ourselves unwell. I can speak for my post-Michaelmas self, whose no-deadline-missed, ever-partying, sports-playing lifestyle left me functionally unable to move for two weeks. If you are driving yourself anywhere near to this, there is no shame in sending your tutor that email and going to bed.

However, I do think there is a really fine balance to strike here, as there is a risk of going too far the other way. Being at Oxford is hard – yes – but it is also a fantastic opportunity. Being able to stop when you are reaching your limit is vital, but this should rest on the idea that you are taking care of yourself and able to alter how you prioritise your work, as opposed to believing that the work doesn’t matter at all. Now, this can of course be justified through a practical lens. If you take such a nihilistic stance on your degree and the work that you are doing, it is really quite bleak. If you decide not to do that piece of work because you believe it fundamentally doesn’t matter, this can spiral. From losing the motivation to do your degree to losing your drive to do things all together, it can be a really hard thing to pick back up once it’s gone. Consider the investment and effort that has gone into allowing you to be here; think of all the resources at your disposal. I want to make my case through the view of caring for yourself. In the scenario I have presented, if there hadn’t been any preceding late nights, one to push through and get something in that you’re proud of is not going to kill you. Almost as a direct reaction to where I got the first term so wrong, my Hilary saw me slip back and start missing more and more deadlines, which actually made me far more unhappy. Oxford degrees are complex and rich; it is difficult to be inspired if you give up at the first modicum of challenge. That is why, if you are able to catch up on the sleep elsewhere and haven’t been constantly pushing yourself, I do think there are instances where it is good to see the night through. 

On the pendulum of expectations of the self, I can certainly say I have swung quite far to both extremes, and have learned a lot about what balance looks like in the process. I think the bottom line is that it is okay to get it wrong. You have at least three years here if you’re an undergraduate. This means that there will be many – hopefully not too many – other nights like the one I have described. Some days you will wake up far too tired and regret having ploughed onwards. Other days you will wake up and wish you’d just carried on with the work. I have largely spoken about deadlines, but this applies heavily to the social side of university too. Being able to take the option of your bed over the pub without severe FOMO, but also not remaining locked away like a hermit that only emerges for lectures and tutes, is also a fine balance to settle. 

Gradually, we can get better at knowing ourselves and our own needs, and ameliorate that internal dialogue to come to the right conclusion. Keeping ourselves motivated and inspired sometimes takes extra exertion, but being able to say stop when our body and mind requires it is equally important. Striking such a balance does not come naturally, particularly when the Oxford environment is so unlike what most of us have experienced. So it is important to keep reflecting and putting ourselves at the top of the priority list, so we can find the bliss point of sustainable, healthy expectations for ourselves.