In this blog, I will guide you on how to balance Work Life with studies so as to excel in your college life and Career. So let's get started🚀
1. Be organized
Have a blank sheet of paper, and write down all the tasks you have to do today or this week.
Mention the deadlines, and arrange them in priority order of high to low.
This way at least you will have your eyes on the target and won't miss out on the deadlines.
You can use notion.so it has very useful templates for organizing stuff and is completely free. You can use it to take notes, organize your assignment details, connect with google calendar, and have all your events on a single page, etc.
2. Complete the work beforehand
We all know "Parkinson's Law",
work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
So if you have the assignment to submit a week later, don't wait for the night before to complete it, set pseudo deadlines prior to the original ones, and complete it beforehand, this way you won't panic a day before the submission.
3. Use some free online tools to save time.
The tools I am mentioning are used by me myself and many others & are free to use.
Disclaimer: not promoting, just suggesting :)
- I have already mentioned Notion, check some of their templates.
- You can also use Google Calendar and Todoist, to block time for various events of the day,
- This way you won't miss out on anything. You can add labels to reflect the priority and type of event.
- Create a private Github repo, and use it as free cloud storage .Store your work there and access/edit it using any device ;)
- Use the bookmarks folder to categorize important web pages into different folders, or you can use Notion's web clipper extension as well.
- Use Calendly to schedule meetings if you are a freelancer or consultant.
- In the end, if you want to reduce your screen time, you can reduce the use of these online tools and always take a notebook and write down everything, plan your day and make a schedule. We all know if Facebook can go down for 5 hours anything can happen with these proprietary services :)
- Now don't go for those fancy notebooks just to follow up for 2-3 days and then feel guilty about not journaling any further. A simple notebook or scratch will do the same work. It's like buying for Macbook to learn to code.
4. Recognize Burnout
At times we get so engrossed in work that we forget to take a rest. And then there's burnout, a mental breakdown.
image credits : Janis Ozolins
All I need to do is to take a break, rejuvenate, and let my mind recover. I hang out with my friends. Play some table tennis. Listen to my favorite artists. Watch movies (a lot of them). I just take some time to relax and let my brain get stronger while I’m not thinking or working on anything. And then, I get back to where I left off.
From the book 'Think Straight'
5. Learn to say "No"
Sometimes you will already have a lot on your plate, you really want to help someone, but you can't, right? So it's important to manage priorities, Refer to the Eisenhower matrix (pic above) Categorize your tasks into 4 types:
- Urgent & Important = Priority 1 (Do it)
- Not Urgent & Important = Priority 2 (Plan it)
- Urgent & Not Important = Priority 3 (Delegate it to someone else)
- Not Urgent & Not Important = Priority 4 (Drop it)
6. Health
Have a sound sleep, working up late once in a while is good, but you shouldn't become a coffee-dependent species. Have some physical exercise as well, give rest to your hands and eyes, do some stretching.
Conclusion
If you follow these methods, you will eventually save lots of hours, have better grades,won't miss out on important deadlines, and have a better work-life balance.
Instead of doing everything at once, do one thing at a time.
image credits : Fabio Rosato