Working while studying is a great way to gain some work experience and earn some money to support yourself while still at uni. However, it can be extremely challenging to do both at the same time and not go crazy. Here are some tips to navigate this!
1. Scheduling
If you’re juggling work and academic commitments, it’s extremely easy to get lost in a world of classes, deadlines, and meetings. Not only does this take a lot of mental energy, but it’s really easy to get confused and show up at the wrong time or in the wrong place, or remember an important deadline the night before it’s due.
What works for others may not necessarily work for you, however, the most important thing is to find a method suited to your needs. A combination of digital and analogic methods has always been my go-to: keeping a paper diary or bullet journal makes it easier to plan and safe-keep to-do lists, and a digital calendar such as Google Calendar makes it easy to schedule events and be automatically reminded on your smartphone or laptop when they approach.
Having all your upcoming events and deadlines laid out also means that your brain can focus on the tasks at hand, without worrying whether you’ll have time to do something.
2. Prioritization
In order to know what to put into your calendar, though, it’s important to prioritize tasks. This will allow you to measure your strength properly, and avoid burning out.
A really useful framework to figure this out is the urgency/importance matrix. The number in each quadrant corresponds to the priority you should give a certain item. In this example, number 1 corresponds to urgent and important — these are the tasks that should be done first, like an upcoming deadline. Non-urgent but important tasks may include e.g. working out or making a meal plan. For the urgent but non-important items in quadrant number 3, if possible, assign them to someone else — these could be, for instance, washing the dishes or buying toilet paper: perhaps your flatmate or partner can do this for you. However, for non-urgent and non-important tasks, it may make sense to wonder why there’s a need for this particular item at this moment, and consider whether it can be eliminated to make room for something else.
This matrix can be applied to all areas of life, such as work, studying, or personal, so give it a go and knowing what to do and plan next will be a piece of cake!
3. Remember to rest!
It is really easy to fall into a rut of work, class, sleep, rinse and repeat. This is dangerous, as it can definitely lead to a burnout and unhappiness in general. Seeing friends, resting and meditating (and the odd Netflix show here and there) should form part of your prioritization and schedule, so you can achieve the oh-so-elusive perfect balance.