For university students starting a new academic year comes with many challenges. One of these challenges is figuring out our optimal study/life balance. This optimal balance is a balance between academic life and social life where we put enough effort into our studies while enjoying the social aspects of being a uni student. Working out this balance is crucial because spending a sufficient amount of time in both is essential when you desire an enjoyable uni life.
However, finding this balance seems to be especially challenging for all of us at the start of this academic year as there has been a significant shift from online learning to being fully on campus. While it is extremely exciting that we can experience “normal” student life, it can be harder now to find out a new balance since the social aspect of uni has been fully restored. Moreover, this optimal study-life balance is different for every one of us since it depends on all sorts of things including how much emphasis you put on your academic and social life, your English language proficiency, how much personal time you need every day, and more.
Therefore, because it can be really hard to find your optimal balance, this article will share five tips to help you do this:
- Trial and error
Nobody can figure out their optimal balance from the beginning. It will take time as you need to keep trying different combinations of academic life to social life ratios until you find the best one that suits you. It is even okay to devote the whole year to figuring that out. While you are doing so, your grades will fluctuate and can even drop. Yet, this is actually beneficial for you because it will help you realize that you need to put more effort into your studies. In fact, for those of you who are in level 1 or 2, your grades don’t count towards your final grades, so you can make as many mistakes as you want. The more you make mistakes, the more you will approach your optimal balance, which you can use as a basis for the following years.
- Set a goal
Setting daily goals for both your academic and social life is another way that will help you work out your optimal balance. For example, you can do this by creating to-do lists and deciding on how much time to devote to either life. The key here is to set a goal for both your academic and social life as you can visualise the time or ratio you spent on each, making it easier for you to work out your optimal balance. Moreover, setting a goal for both your academic life and social life will ensure you spent time on both, avoiding you missing out on either aspect of your life while at uni, and onwards!
- Create a schedule
Creating daily schedules using a calendar app will not only help you manage your schedule but also help you visualise how much time you will spend, or have spent on your academic and social life each day. This will help you to reflect on your current study-life balance and adjust accordingly. It will also help you plan ahead on how much time to spend on each every day.
Adding to this, you should schedule your academic and social time in turns. For example, you should study 2 hours at the library, 2 hours going to lunch with friends, study 2 hours again at the library and 2 hours on the event for the society you have joined rather than study 4 hours straight at the library and then 4 hours straight at a pub. This is because your productivity will gradually drop when you continuously study for several hours and become unproductive towards the end due to tiredness. As a result, you will be far more productive if you alternate your study and social time every 2 hours or so and this may mean that you can devote more time to your social life while maintaining your grades.
- Set boundaries
Making a clear distinction between your academic and social life is helpful especially if you have a hard time switching on/off your study or social mode. This is because separating the two can stop you from spending all your time on either life, helping you work out your optimal study-life balance. Separating the location that you spend your academic and social life at can be one way for you to create distinct boundaries, enabling you to easily switch on/off your current mode.
- Seeking help from others
The last tip is to ask your peers and family members about how they figured out their optimal balance as they should have been through the same thing as you when they were at uni. Gaining real examples is helpful as you can take one example that you feel suits you the most and try following that. You can use that example as your base and start adjusting to your optimal balance from there. It is much easier to have a base than to construct a schedule from scratch.
If you want a more professional opinion or advice, then the counselling service that the uni offers might be the best place for you to visit. They offer free counselling sessions from a professional counsellor and you can get your appointment set within 3 to 5 working days after you submitted a request.
These are five tips that might help you figure out your optimal study/life balance. Working this balance out will be a long process for any of us and can even become a heart-breaking process. However, please remember that all of us are in the same boat and you aren’t alone in this process.