Schedule Balancing Tips Between School And Work

Now that school is here, many students are in need of schedule balancing tips to assure they are on tip of school work and job requirements. In the fall, students are transitioning between full-time work to part-time jobs to help them manage enough time to complete schoolwork. While some find it difficult to manage more than school, a lot of students do not have the choice, and must obtain a job to sustain their finance for school. Either or, balancing another activity on top of a full-time school schedule can be a little tricky. For this reason, we have come up with a few tips to help balance your schedule.

1. Calendar/Planner

A great first step for these schedule balancing tips is to physically make a schedule for everything. We are not simply talking about your timetable for school. We mean creating a layout of everything you have to do in one day to a week. This schedule will include your classes, and work schedule. For better efficiencies, you should add your commute times as well. Place these subjects in a specific colour to help you visually see your schedule for the day. For example, red will be for work, purple for school and green for commuting. By doing this you are actually blocking out the times you are not able to complete schoolwork. The leftover times are the slots within your day where you can complete your homework/readings. You can use a physical planner or a digital planner such as Google Calendar.

2. Timer

Another of the great schedule balancing tips we have to offer is to give yourself a timer. You can use your cell phone, stopwatch or even a time cube to complete this. Basically, you will be giving yourself time periods to complete a specific task, depending on how long you should be able to complete it. For example, if you need to edit an assignment, you can give yourself 30mins-60mins to complete this depending on how big the assignment is. By setting a timer, you are giving yourself a specific time to complete this task, and hopefully, it would be completely finished when the timer goes off. Timers are a nice way to get down and focus on your tasks at hand.

3. To-Do List

Some students already use one of these schedule balancing tips – which is to create a to-do list. Either on a physical notebook, notepad on your laptop or a to-do list app on your phone are great mediums for you to use. An easy way to use a to-do list is to write each task down based on their due date. In other words, those tasks that are due first will be on top, and the tasks that are due later will be at the bottom of the list. Some students use a planner to lay out an overview of the week, and a to-do list to layout the tasks you need to complete per day. By doing so, you will easily remember what you need to accomplish daily and track your progress overall in homework completion.

4. Plan Ahead

Planning ahead is probably one of the crucial schedule balancing tips we have to offer. Planning ahead can be referring to your commute, homework or even your tasks at work. For example, transit can be brutal and almost impossible in the winter, which is why we recommend you commute to school/work at least 30min to 1hr before you usually begin your commute. This way you limit your chances of being late to an exam or an office meeting. In regards to your schoolwork, planning ahead maybe referring to looking at an assignment and jotting down ideas as soon as you get it. By doing so, you know what you want to do and what questions you have to ask, so you are ready when your professor reviews the project. It is all about expecting the unexpected, and always being ready.