Finding Balance as a Student (written for Westwood blog)

One of the biggest struggles I hear from students is how to manage all the components of their busy life. Many non-traditional students juggle a full-time job, kids, family and friends, extracurricular activities, bills, maintaining a household and more! Even full-time students who only have to focus on going to school can have a hard time finding a good balance in life.

While the most important thing is to prioritize, you need to have a good understanding of where your priorities lie. Of course it’s different for everyone, but no matter who you are, or what you have going on in your life, it’s crucial to find some time for yourself to recharge. The easy part comes after you find that time – then you get to decide what you’d like to do.

First, how do you best prioritize?

To begin, you need to identify the areas in your life that are inflexible. For example, it goes without saying that you need to have time to eat throughout the day, get a good night’s rest and take care of basic needs for yourself and your dependents, if applicable. Taking care of these fundamental needs should never be compromised.

After you’ve determined those top priorities, you’ll want to write down on a calendar any hard, or inflexible deadlines you have – this would include bills, homework assignment due dates, etc. These are only deadlines that are extremely unlikely to move to any other day.

It might be helpful to organize your list by color – red being the most important, orange second, and so on. You’ve already gone through your “red” priorities.

The next phase will be different for everyone. How flexible is the schedule at your job? Can you change your shift to accommodate other activities? What about your classes? Is there an option to take any of your courses online? Or take evening classes?

You may be surprised to find out how willing other people are to work with you. Instructors, employers, even billers can be flexible on the schedule you work out with them. Once you’ve determined what is most important in your life, you simply need to go down your list and see where you can make adjustments. There might be areas where you can combine tasks or set up a new system to make things easier. For example, you might consider taking public transit on certain days so you can study while you commute. Or you can set up automatic bill pay through your bank or the biller – that way you don’t have to worry about remembering when to make a payment.

But if you’ve found that your time is completely full of chores (jobs, studying, taking care of others…), then you need to start looking for some compromise. Do you have any family members who could watch your kids weekly or bi-weekly so you can take a yoga class? Or perhaps you set aside 30 minutes twice a week before you go to bed where you can relax and take a hot bath or read a book. Or maybe you get an audio version of a book and listen to it during your daily commute.

Don’t procrastinate!

Many people who can’t seem to “find the time” to do anything for themselves may be procrastinators. Or put another way, they’re failing to prioritize and organize themselves well enough. Give yourself small, achievable deadlines so you get a little done each day. Consider where your time is spent – are you watching TV when you could be doing something more productive or rewarding? Set up a routine – make one day of the week the day you take care of all your bills. Another day could be set aside for house chores. And another (preferably a day or two before the deadline) for studying and homework assignments. Then make sure to schedule a day or at least part of a day routinely as a time dedicated to yourself.

Learn how to relax

As a single mother, working full time, going to school full time…I eventually realized I didn’t know how to relax properly. Once I finally assessed everything I was doing, I realized things I thought were good for me, were actually causing me more stress. I had a weekly yoga class that I was racing from one side of town to the other in order to make it on time. I was also trying to find a babysitter every week and this was stressful. Finally I decided it was in my best interest to stop attending the class for the time being. Instead, I did my best to create a routine when I could do yoga at home in the morning before my daughter woke up and before my day officially started.

Try out different activities to see what you like best. The important thing is to make sure your life and schedule is manageable. If it’s not, you may need to sacrifice some areas of your life for now, so you can take care of what’s important. Decide what will be most beneficial to you now, and come to terms with the fact that you can’t do everything.

Don’t be afraid to say no

It might be hard for you to turn down volunteering opportunities or to let your employer know you can’t pick up that extra shift. You may find yourself committing to more things than you can reasonably take on. When this happens, don’t be reluctant to go back to people and let them know that you simply overcommitted yourself.

Simply…take care of yourself

Have you seen the brochures on airplanes that explain how you must put an oxygen mask on yourself before assisting others? Don’t think that you’ll be able to make any kind of difference in anyone else’s life if you haven’t first made sure you’re set up right. Think about your life and everything you have going on. Reflect on how you feel overall with your life satisfaction. Identify the areas that feel unbalanced and try different techniques to find the right balance. It will pay off tremendously in the end.