When you have to balance work, studies, and personal life, things get complicated fast. Between assignments, papers, and job-related tasks, you might be feeling that you’re running like a hamster in a wheel the whole day, seven days a week.
While you may think it’s a normal arrangement for working students and you should just grind through it, it comes with serious risks. This grinder lifestyle is a one-way ticket to burning out due to all the stress.
Luckily, there’s an alternative. You can juggle your job and studies – and fend off burnout at the same time. All you have to do is follow these six tips.
Straighten Out Your Priorities
You can’t magically increase the number of hours in a day. So, at some point, if you have too much workload and not enough time for it, you’ll need to make sacrifices. Determining your priorities beforehand will help you do it in the most painless way possible.
Ask yourself why you do what you do and where you reap the most benefits. For example, what would be your top priority: writing a dissertation on a topic you’re hardly interested in or securing that promotion?
Don’t Forget About Your Well-Being
It’s tempting to look at your to-do list and schedule every minute of your waking time. But in doing that, you may easily overlook your basic needs: quality sleep, meal breaks, or even hygiene.
Apart from that, consider resting and exercising your basic needs, too – if you don’t want to burn out, that is.
Define your non-negotiables: things you do for yourself every day, no matter what. They can include:
- Going for a fifteen-minute walk;
- Doing a workout or yoga routine;
- Dedicating 30 minutes to a hobby (drawing, reading, photography, etc.).
Schedule Your Days Off
There’s a good reason why workers fought for a five-day working week (and why there’s a push for a four-day one now, too). That reason is that humans need to have days off.
It might seem impossible to have even one day off when you have a busy work-study schedule, but you should. You deserve it. More than that, you need it to recharge your batteries – and avoid exhaustion. So, put having at least one day off per week high on your priority list!
Use Every Spare Minute
Chances are that you have a total hour or two in your day where your brain doesn’t engage in anything meaningful. It may be when you do the dishes, commute, or stand in line to get your cup of coffee.
You can use that time to complete small tasks like sending emails or answering messages. Or, you can also get your brain busy and squeeze a bit of studying out of those minutes by:
- Listening to an audio version of a textbook or reading it on your smartphone;
- Watching or listening to YouTube videos on the topics you’re studying;
- Using apps that can help you study (digital flashcards, quizzes, language learning apps, etc).
Adopt the Right Productivity Habits
Productivity is key to juggling work and studies. The more you get done in a given period, the more time you have for yourself – and the more you achieve in general.
Here are five productivity habits that you should cultivate.
- Use the Pomodoro method. Work for 25 minutes or longer, then take a five-minute break. Those breaks will keep your brain juices flowing!
- Recognize and beat procrastination. Whenever you notice you’re procrastinating, commit to working on the task you’re avoiding for five minutes. It’ll help you overcome the main challenge – getting started.
- Avoid distractions. Find a quiet place to study, tune out the noise, install an impulse blocker, and turn off unimportant notifications.
- Find your in-the-zone trigger. The right music, place, or beverage can be that extra push you need to maximize your productivity.
- Stick to a schedule. To do it right, estimate the time you’ll need to complete a task – and multiply it by 1.5x. Remember to have some unstructured time in your schedule for force majeure or rest.
Final Thoughts
Juggling work and studies is no easy feat – but it’s not impossible, either. It takes the right productive habits, some outsourcing and automation, and, most importantly, figuring out your priorities.
Remember: you don’t have to be a one-person show if you don’t feel up to the challenge. That’s not weakness; it’s self-preservation. So, to avoid condemning yourself to burnout, take some time off once in a while – and offload your homework if you have to.
