How to Balance Work and School

It happens to everyone at some point, they find that they have a list of things to do a mile long, and just not enough time to do them. For teens and young adults especially; balancing both a school schedule and a work schedule, whether it be full or part-time, is hard. Instead of cutting out sleep or a social life entirely, here are a few things that you can do to help balance your obligations and hopefully make a difference in your education and workplace.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Willingness to be dependable at work as well as the willingness to work hard at school for good grades.
• A job
• Good study habits.

1. First off, you need to be willing to really work hard at both your job and at school. Not being willing to work at either place will pretty much make this advice useless. Try to finish as much homework as possible in class, talking when allowed is okay, just make sure that you finish up as much homework as you can in the process. Most kids go to school until around 3 pm, so set up your work schedule so that you don't go in until 4 or 5, that way, you will have some time to finish leftover homework before clocking in.

2. Next, don't think about the mounds of homework, chores, projects, and other things that you are behind on at work, this will make you distracted and not as productive as you can be. There will be time for all of those things on breaks or after work.

3. While at work, talk to co-workers!! This is a prime opportunity for you to socialize with other people that you work with. This will not only help to create friendships with people that may go to other schools or that even go to your school, but you haven't met. This will open up a larger range of friends as well as help you not want to go crazy because you have no one to talk to.

4. Finally, adjust your work schedule so that you actually have time to do things after work. Once you go home, don't just jump into your homework first thing, take time to sit down and put up your feet for a minute, this will make it easier for you to concentrate on your homework.

5. Now that you have learned how to balance both your work and school schedule, you will be more productive and efficient simultaneously in each place. You should now be able to tweak your two schedules so that you also have enough free time for yourself.

Tips & Warnings

• Mix it up a little! On weekends, don't always do homework right after school. As long as you set aside plenty of time for it to get finished that weekend, you should be okay. Also, try working in the mornings on weekends if possible, this will not only expand your skills at work, making you a more valuable employee, but it will also make work more interesting by giving you a variety of tasks and not just the same thing at the same time everyday.
• Don't overdo it! Many young adults overwork themselves and that really just leads to unneeded stress.
• Avoid going out too late or staying over at work especially late at night, this will cut into your sleep and possibly make the next day harder for you due to lack of sleep.