A prospective law student will perform the following six activities—turkey eating, discount shopping, meeting up with friends, visiting relatives, final paper writing, and LSAT studying—on Thursday through Sunday of this week. Each activity will be performed on at least one day. The following conditions apply:

The student must perform turkey eating on Thursday.
LSAT studying must be performed on more days than discount shopping and visiting relatives.
The student’s grades depend on paper writing, and the student’s LSAT score depends on LSAT studying.
The student’s admission to law school depends on the student’s grades and LSAT score.
The December LSAT is a week away.

Does this little game fill you with panic? That means you need to plan out the balancing act you’ll perform this weekend. It doesn’t have to be that bad.

Start with the following premises: You need to study. You can’t entirely ignore your family. You need a little bit of time for yourself to feel sane.

Here’s how you do it…

Thursday morning, wake up at a reasonable hour and get some studying done in the morning, if you’re not too busy helping to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. Then, as soon as you sit down to eat, you’re done for the day. Don’t even let the LSAT cross your mind. Even with test day rapidly approaching, you need a few legitimate breaks to clear your mind.

That plan assumes, however, that Thanksgiving dinner will be a pleasant break from studying for you.  If your family dinners skew more along the lines of the Griswolds’, the LSAT is a perfect escape plan. Eat, make the best possible impression with your extended family, then politely excuse yourself and disappear to study. Take the mental break another time.

Some people have already started camping out for Black Friday. Those people clearly aren’t studying for the LSAT (though here’s a conditional statement for you to diagram: If you camp out for two weeks before Black Friday, then you have too much time on your hands). You, however, should put that shopping off for a week. If there are things you absolutely must buy now, do it online. Otherwise, Friday is your time to study. If the house is quiet while everyone else is out shopping, that’s great. If it’s a madhouse full of extended family, you need to get out of there. Try a library, a coffee shop, or anywhere else that you’re unlikely to be disturbed. Maybe mix in a little work on a final paper or exam while you’re there.

The theme continues over the weekend. You need to study, but it’s not actually good for your LSAT score to study every waking minute. Use the extra time to get a couple practice tests in, and review them thoroughly. Brush up on your weaker sections. Spend lots of time with your books, but also plan out some time away from the LSAT – and when you get away from the LSAT, really get away. It helps to clear your head. If that doesn’t work, just remember… at least you’re not at the mall.