Having enrolled in a college or university, you are supposed to devote most of your time to studying. Married or single, with children or not, teachers set the same standards for all. Many of them would not bother to postpone your deadlines because you have a family or job to take care of. Nevertheless, studying is not a rare disease. It comes and goes, and we should make the most of it once we decided to proceed with studies.
Here are some ideas that would make your life easier in case you have to keep learning while doing your job and looking after a family.
Do not try to multitask at all times
Studying at college, you certainly have much to do. Lectures, workshops, important projects, and homework clearly interfere with your usual daily activity. To compensate for a sudden lack of time, you try to do home chores in-between classes and homework and only get distracted from your studies.
Multitasking brings the illusion that you can do everything at once. In fact, you plan so many activities per day that you cannot accomplish them. Try to draw the line between studying and daily chores to finish urgent tasks on time. It is very likely you will not complete as many tasks as you want if you stop multitasking. But you will learn to manage your daily schedule and plan as many tasks as you can complete.
Decide which hours you will devote to studying
Just like you have a schedule of classes or working hours, plan your study at home. How much time can you devote to doing homework? Always schedule your studying and spend these few hours on homework only. Try not to get distracted by dirty laundry or dishes in the kitchen sink. Later on, you will have a few more hours to deal with them as well.
HD photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters (@glenncarstenspeters) on Unsplash
Plan family time just like you plan classes
Strict time management refers not only to your college matters. If you have kids, you certainly cannot ignore them because you are trying to get a degree. Combining college and family, you certainly have a daycare or less-busy family members looking after your kid while you are away. Once you are at home, schedule some time to spend exclusively with your child. You may check homework, play games, or go out. Your family is a top priority, and you do not want to neglect it because of homework.
Delegate a part of your tasks to less-busy family members
If you are a working and studying mom, you should have someone who helps you. It would be perfect if your parent or husband takes care of children and household while you are away. Hopefully, a woman is not the only one responsible for a proper functioning of a family in the 21st century. So, do not hesitate to delegate some daily chores to your loved ones.
HD photo by Becca Tapert (@beccatapert) on Unsplash
Optimize your learning whenever possible
If you have a job and family to take care of, it is only natural that you cannot spend a lot of time studying. Your hours of learning are limited, and you should take decisions about which lectures not to attend and which homework not to do.
In a perfect world, you would certainly attend all classes and complete every assignment yourself. But in the real world, your day is only 24 hours, and many of them are occupied with non-educational businesses. Try delegating your homework to online services that can write your papers for you. They charge prices affordable to an average student so you can easily buy the essays you need.
Do not dramatize your college troubles, but also avoid neglecting studies
College can give you a stressful time, especially if you have to combine it with a job. Being a perfectionist or a hard-working individual, you become even more vulnerable to the stress of tuition. Now it is time to take a realistic look at your college experience. It is only one of your many tasks and it will be over in a couple of years. Until then, you should not take studying troubles as a personal insult. Try to do your best at college, but do not get too upset if you fail. The well-being of your family is still your major interest and it will not be ruined once you get a low grade. Think rationally of what went wrong and try again.
Go out with friends once in a while
To make your life even more fulfilling, try going out with friends on the weekend. When invited by your close mates, you probably got used to giving a standard excuse: ”I have to stay at home for family or college matters.” Try breaking this pattern and have fun with friends occasionally. You will see how much more happy your life becomes when you stop limiting it to a job, family, and college.
HD photo be danny howe (@dannyhowe) on Unsplash
Take good care of your health and never sacrifice it for studying
Diligence is a virtue, but letting down your health because of studies is a dead end. Studying will come to halt soon, but you do not want to continue living with diseases and cheques from your medical provider.
Besides, you have a family to take care of, and that is another reason why you do not want to fall ill after countless sleepless nights. Eat food slowly and sleep well to make the bare minimum of a healthy living. Do not spend every night delving into books. A lack of sleep may dramatically disturb your metabolism. Again, delegate minor college tasks to someone else and stop worrying about violated deadlines.
Disciplining yourself can be difficult at first, but you will get used to it in 10 days
The point of this entire article is to help you manage your time and enrich your working day with different activities. Take a realistic look at your time. You have only some 10-16 hours of activity every day, and you have to put job, college, and family in it. Spend these hours wisely. We recommend not to mix it all up and not to dedicate the entire day to either work or studying exclusively. As you put a little bit of everything on your schedule, you will see your tasks gradually being resolved. Thus, you will feel more satisfaction from family interactions and get a better student experience.