93 Hard: The Harvard Student’s Semester-Long Challenge

We’ve all heard of the 75 Hard Challenge. If you haven’t, here’s the gist: it is a life-changing, habit-altering process created by Andy Frisella where you follow a strict regimen for 75 days in an attempt to get rid of bad habits and, hopefully, retain some of the good ones included in the challenge. In other words, it’s 75 days of making yourself completely miserable on the off chance that you halfway retain a couple of questionably helpful habits. It is equally likely that after 75 days, you’ll be so sick of being healthy that you stop drinking water entirely and eat quart-sized Ben & Jerry’s ice cream tubs nightly as a reward for finishing.

While the 75 Hard Challenge is unrealistic (to say the least) and often completely anti-productive, the idea is not entirely a lost cause. With 93 days in this spring semester, I have formulated a super realistic plan of action to make this semester the best it can possibly be! Let’s get into it.

1. Do all of your readings and psets.

While the 75 Hard Challenge says 10 pages of self-improvement reading will suffice, given the sheer volume of work allotted to most Harvard students, a mere 10 pages is but a drop of water in the ocean. I know how daunting it can be to look at the syllabi of classes and realize that you have 150 pages of reading due for class the next day, 300 pages for the day after, and a pset due at midnight. Three days in, you’re buried under a mountain of incomplete readings, and, suddenly, you’re asking Chat GPT, Schmoop, Sparknotes, and whatever other platform you can find to summarize the text while simultaneously providing you with the perfect (original, never-before-thought-of) insight on what the readings mean so that you have something to share in class.

Spoiler: that strategy never quite works out the way you want it to. And then, of course, the pset that you absolutely cannot afford to take a late day on, which you thought was only three problems, turns out to be the most heinous, elaborate, 27-part-per-question piece of homework ever. Bottom line is, you’re screwed. So, what do you do? Text a friend? Ask AI? Pray?

No. This semester, we aren’t getting ourselves into these predicaments. During 93 Hard, we’re finishing all of our reading assignments and psets a day before they’re due. That’s right. A full day.

2. Get 7-9 hours of sleep every night.

This one might be tricky, especially if you intend to follow through with the rest of this list. Getting readings done, psets completed, and exams studied for often means sacrificing sleep, consuming absurd quantities of energy drinks and coffee, and saying good morning (instead of good night) to the Lamont security guards as you leave. But this semester, we will somehow make it work. If you’re like me and deleted TikTok from your phone while the ban was in place and can’t redownload it, you’re in luck! All those hours you would’ve spent scrolling can now be dedicated to improving your sleep schedule (and reading flyby).

3. Use your meal plan.

I don’t know about you, but I find myself rewarding myself for completing menial tasks far too frequently. I finished half of my reading assignment, and I think I deserve Insomnia; I went to office hours, and that means I get my nails done. My bank account isn’t even screaming anymore — it’s deceased. So, 93 Hard challenges you to only eat out once a week. If you finish a pset, treat yourself to a delicious dining hall chocolate chip blondie (how are those consistently SO GOOD?!). Let’s work on our self-control and make the most of our dining hall staff’s efforts. First-years, I’m sorry, but you’re stuck at Berg… so good luck with this one.

4. Actually move!

When you’re tasked with completing all of your assignments for classes, getting enough sleep, and not even being able to reward yourself for your efforts, the last thing you want to do is go to the gym. But this semester, WE GO TO THE GYM!!! I don’t care if you have to read through your notes on the treadmill or write your essay in your notes app in between squat sets: Move. Your. Body. It doesn’t have to be two workouts a day for 45 minutes each (extremely excessive and unattainable). Working out even a little is so beneficial for your mental well-being (unless you’re like me and have to listen to David Goggins to keep yourself on the StairMaster for longer than 10 minutes). Play intramural sports, join club pickleball, or go for a walk. It doesn’t matter. Just move.

5. Take progress pictures.

The semester often slowly sucks the life out of us, regardless of the good habits we maintain. A piece of us dies every time a professor cold calls, our finance internship application is rejected after three rounds of interviews, or an essay is graded far too harshly by a TF who makes it their personal mission to combat grade inflation. Even so, every reading you successfully complete, every pset you finish on your own, and every time you force yourself to sit in your dining hall, eating chicken breast and rice when all you want is a Felipe’s burrito, accumulates into a semester of progress. Documenting this progress is crucial to tracking all you suffer through this semester, so every night, before you go to sleep (after you finish crying about how you just don’t care about Math Ma enough to do this pset on your own), take a picture. Document your inevitable decline. At least you know that each day brings you one step closer to summer and one step closer to finishing this super realistic, super beneficial, life-changing, habit-building exercise!

Being a Harvard student isn’t easy. The overwhelming pressure to overachieve and to constantly be productive looms over all of us. Every college student’s dream, right? I mean, who truly wants to go to big football games, have game nights with friends, or otherwise slack off when you could be on the grind 24/7? 93 Hard is here to help you lose the fun, unproductive aspects of student life, like staying up until 3 a.m. eating Jefe’s after visiting the sweatiest, most claustrophobic MIT frat you’ve ever been in. Let’s all set ourselves up for success and strive to be the best versions of ourselves possible!

All work, no play.