The summer break comes at the right time of year. A halfway or midyear review can be used to reignite your enthusiasm on a personal project, regain motivation, catch up on where you should be without external deadlines and pressure, or you might want to start afresh with completely new goals. Some productive activities that can be accomplished over the summer break are:

reignite your enthusiasm, regain motivation, catch up, start afresh on new goals

• Achieve a fitness goal. It's never too late to lose that extra weight, tone up or improve endurance and strength.


• Exercise outdoors. Summer sports like swimming, tennis, volleyball, skateboarding, cycling or simply walking more, each come with enormous benefits or may only be enjoyed during the warmer months.


• Ramp up in a skill. Checkout Duolingo if you want to learn or improve in a foreign language. Try Lynda for video courses on almost every topic. And complete a course on Coursera (or one of many other MOOC providers) in business, computer science, humanities and much more.


• Be creative. With the newfound time you have, sketch, compose, photograph or write to your heart's content. Set yourself small projects and complete one every two to three weeks.


• Get a head start on the next semester or academic year. Revise the previous year's work and write or rewrite summaries and references that you can use in the next study period. Alternatively, if you're ready to move on to new material, read ahead and take notes that you can expand upon later.

The key to making progress during the break is to stick to a schedule or routine. Freestyling each day will lead to two months unaccounted for and a harder time transitioning back to work or school life in the fall. Allocating at least two or three hours a day to something productive during the break could benefit your health, keep your mind active or give you that added advantage at school or work, depending on the activities you choose to do.