5 Tips for Balancing College and the Rest of Your Life

Do you ever feel like your college classes are taking over your life, or like you’re not focusing enough on school?

Hectic busy college lives don’t always have a healthy balance. Read these tips to get those good grades, while also having a social life and keeping up with anything else your college days include.

1. Plan out your week

To make sure you can get work done at the most convenient times, write down all of your assignments and their due dates. But, also include everything you’re doing that week, and I mean EVERYTHING. Going to lunch with a friend? Write it down. Got a club meeting? Write it down! Doctor appointment? You Get the point.

By writing everything down, you won’t have to cancel your social plans when you realize your five page essay is due that night, or miss an assignment because of an appointment. You can see when you’ll be busy and when you’ll be free, so you do that essay a night early instead of binging The Office for the 30th time.

2. Make plans ahead of time

One way to make sure you’re having a balanced life is to make your plans ahead of time. When know what you’re doing ahead of time, you can take care of any homework that’s due the day of your plans and ensure that you can have fun even when you have homework assignments due every day of the week.

3. Have a designated homework day

Sometimes even though it may seem counter-intuitive, getting as much homework out of the way in one day (earlier in the week) can actually help you to balance your life more. If you have some quick assignments and just get them done, later in the week you’ll have more time to space the rest of your work out, hang out with friends, and do all the things you want to do, because you’ve lightened your homework load for the rest of the week.

4. Schedule rest time

Scheduling in time to let yourself rest is just as important as scheduling your work time. Try setting a cut off time for when you have to stop working on homework or have to leave your friends, so you can have some well deserved you-time. I personally won’t do homework past 10:30pm because that’s when my brain stops working and I need to start resting, but pick a time that works the best for you.

5. Self-assign your due dates

If you have 10 assignments due on Friday, waiting until Friday to do all your homework will not help you have a balanced life. You may miss valuable time with friends, not to mention you’ll be more stressed being close to the due date. Try assigning yourself new due dates at different times during the week so you can enjoy your weekend, rest up and also get it all done.