Meet the second year Lancs student who gets up at 3am to study

It has crossed all of our minds at some point or another: do I just stay up all night to get this work done? It is very tempting, after a day of procrastinating, to bash out an essay in the ungodly hours of the morning. Most of us, however, do this very unhealthily with an abundance of energy drinks and fast food, but not Leanne Choo.

With the kind of year we’ve all had, we could do with a little more organisation and routine in our lives and Leanne goes above and beyond. This may be your secret to meeting deadlines and surviving a busy submission season.

‘Knowing that a deadline is hovering over me also helps me wake up on time’

So, the routine. What is it? Leanne told us that she usually does this when there’s a deadline approaching and she will even get her friends to join her. Unlike many students, she explained how she tends to work better in the mornings when there’s nothing disrupting her and so her morning routine normally consists of simply waking up, snacking and studying from 3am to 8am.

Leanne said that she then eats “proper breakfast at 9am, nap till 10/11am and continue the rest of the day like everyone”. Although, not all of us have the luxury of this freedom with their courses, Leanne did explain that she does business and so everything is much more project based and so she can do things at her own pace.

If you’re astounded at the fact that anyone could start their day at 3am then you’re not alone but there is also a very reasonable explanation with Leanne saying: “When you’ve found a project you really want to excel in, you struggle to sleep. Knowing that a deadline is hovering over me also helps me wake up on time. I’m also an early bird, I don’t study at night so I’m usually scrolling TikTok, doing yoga or chatting with housemates.”

This may seem impossible to some people (I know that yoga isn’t exactly one of the healthy hobbies that I’ve adopted into my routine) and Leanne may seem like she’s got her life in check but she’s definitely made it sound doable.

‘This one just happens to work for me, especially during submission season’

When we asked if she would recommend it to anyone, she told us that it would be very helpful to professional procrastinators or easily distracted students (you might know one or two). Highlighting that it is really productive and quiet when you do all your work so early in the morning with no texts to distract you and nothing happening on your phone to stop you from meeting deadlines. We are all guilty of doing five minutes of work and feeling like we deserve a break or receiving texts and being bombarded with feelings of FOMO so maybe this is the answer!

While Leanne has her fool-proof routine set up, she recognises that it isn’t for everyone. She made it clear that people should “do it if you want to but tweak it according to your sleep schedule. This one just happens to work for me, especially during submission season. I don’t deprive myself of anything, I simply delay it and live the typical uni student life on the weekends.”

Sounds like we could all learn a little something from this routine and, if 9am lectures and seminars didn’t exist, it would definitely be a helpful way to start getting word done.

‘Overall, nothing much has changed I’m still quietly doing my own thing’

Leanne finished telling us all about her experience by explaining about what she thinks of how this routine has blown up. As an international student, she simply documents her life to have something to look back on when she goes home and never thought that she would be followed back by some of her favourite TikTokkers.

She’s staying humble through the whole ordeal and said: “Overall, nothing much has changed I’m still quietly doing my own thing in this huge campus, trying my best and hoping to gain as much as I can while studying here”.

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