A lot of people struggle to balance home and work/school life, but when you really plan it out and stick to that schedule, it can actually be made 10 times easier.
Where I work, I’m lucky enough to get my work router a month in advance, and I already know by school timetable, so I have plenty of time to figure out what I want to be doing during my time off. However, if you, like some of my friends and family, get weekly routers, that’s okay too, you can still make quick plans – even if they aren’t 100% confirmed.
I typically start planning the tasks I want to be doing and the people I’d like to see. Then once I know when I’m free, I’ll choose a day where I am able to do these things – sometimes I wont get to do everything that I wanted to that week, but there’s always next week.
KEY THING TO REMEMBER: you don’t necessarily need to meet family and friends in person if you do not think you have the time. A 10 minute phone or FaceTime call is usually available to you – then at least you get to speak to them (even if it isn’t quite the same).
On top of the different communication methods that you can use, remember that you can use the time before or after your shifts to do the things that you’ve been wanting to do (as long as you have the energy).
If you are like me, and start work at around midday, then you have the whole morning to get things done – you just need to get out of the ‘I can’t do anything because I need to go out soon’ mindset. What I tend to do is invite someone over for a drink a few hours before I need to leave. This gives me the chance to socialise, but also leaves me enough time to be ready and in the ‘work mindset’ a little while before I actually head to work.
On the other hand, you may work a 9-5. Well if you think about it, that still gives you a further four hours to do other tasks, and waking up a little earlier could give you some extra time too.
If we break it down into smaller chunks and time block a little bit, we can make those four hours more productive so that we are getting the full use of our time. Let’s say that you have 5 tasks that need to be done: Washing, showering, taking out the rubbish, finish an assignment and hoovering. If you properly plan your time, those tasks can take less than 2.5 hours.
Set yourself a timer for an hour. This can be the time you spend on the assignment – what doesn’t get done can be done in the morning. Then once that timer runs out, have a drink, eat some food and take a 15 minute break. Then reset the timer again and start on the other tasks. Put the washing on and take out the rubbish, then hoover. By the time the washing has finished you would most likely have finished this. Then spend the next 30 minutes enjoying a nice warm shower, massage the shampoo and conditioner into your hair and then use your best-smelling soap. This will likely only take about half an hour (but will leave you feeling nice and refreshed), which means you’ll have another hour and a half to do whatever the hell you want. Relax, watch that show you’ve bee wanting to start, light a candle and read…whatever it is you are feeling.
Then at the end of it…get a good night’s sleep!
Quick Tips
As I’ve said earlier, it can be hard to balance all aspects of life every single week.
1. My best tip is to try and leave one day each week to be by yourself. This will give you more time to do those tasks and then relax and reset before the work begins again.
2. Don’t sit and feel guilty about the things you could’ve done that day if you feel as though you should’ve been more productive. Today is over and tomorrow will be a fresh start. Even if you only manage one task tomorrow, it’s one less to worry about.
3. Make a To-do of all the things that need to be done during the week. Then you can refer to it and figure out what days you have time to do some of those tasks – and it helps to break them down and make them less overwhelming.
I hope this post will be useful to you.
– The Working Student.
The Working Student 