As we’re scarily one-fifth of the way through the semester, I have taken some time to reflect on the past few weeks, as well as my entire college experience, seeing how it will be coming to an end so soon. Being in my final semester and seeing my peers engage in the job search, I couldn’t help but notice something. In the job search, one of the most common things that people look for is a good “work-life balance,” which, yes, of course, is something to strive for in our future jobs, but do we have this so-called “work-life balance” now while we’re still college students? For me, the answer would probably be no, not all the time. I definitely have the tendency to sometimes allow my work to overwhelm me, so here are some tips for getting that balance back and enjoying life while still being a good student.
I think the first part of this is actually determining what is important to you and what brings you a good quality of life, so in other words: setting some priorities. For me, this would include finishing all of my assignments on time, giving myself ample time to prepare for exams, spending time with my friends, staying involved in campus organizations, having some time for hobbies, and being able to spontaneously decide to do something fun in the city. By reflecting to understand what is important to you, you will have a better picture of what your balance looks like so you can work towards it.
I definitely say this way too often, both in my writing and in real life, but use a calendar!! There are tons of different options that you can choose from, but I find that as a college student, Google Calendar has been the most useful for me. It’s something I can easily access and modify on my phone or my computer, and it makes it so that I can visualize my week to see where I can add in time to do the things I enjoy.
This tip is coming from the (nearly retired) campus leader in me: SET BOUNDARIES. A lot of times, this can be difficult when you are very passionate about the things you are involved in, but even just by setting a few simple boundaries, you can have more control over your life and how you choose to spend your time. One super simple boundary you can start adding into your life is setting a time to not respond to any emails after, so say after 6 p.m., you don’t bother to check your email (unless you are expecting something specific or get an urgent notification). This gives you hours back each day that you don’t have to spend energy being “on call” constantly checking your email, and can contribute to a better balance.
In my experience, at least being friends with people who are very involved on campus, it can feel almost impossible to find time to hang out with people when we all have different schedules. When it is just one person I’m trying to coordinate something with, we will just send each other screenshots of our weekly calendar (another reason Google Calendar can be very helpful), and then we can find a time that we are both free and block it out in our calendars. For larger groups of people, as silly as it sounds, I sometimes send out a “When2Meet” to figure out when everyone can hang out or we can all go to a restaurant together. In either case, once a time is figured out, I can put it in my calendar, and then it becomes a built-in part of the week. In some cases, when life can get super busy, it even makes sense to block out some personal free time in your calendar to do the things you enjoy. Either way, make sure to take the time to understand what balance looks like to you so you can strive to maintain it.
