The best skill you can teach to any young adult, in my opinion, is understanding how to prioritize. Being able to prioritize tasks and assignments can become overwhelming when waves of new responsibilities start to hit college students all at once. Between student loans, monthly bill payments, car maintenance, scheduling appointments, scholarship deadlines, and internships, it can be hard not to lose track of all of these tasks. Not to mention schoolwork, getting involved on campus with clubs and volunteering, or any of the other opportunities college kids can take advantage of during their time at school.
There are so many incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities available to college students – it’s tempting to do it all. But it takes knowing how to prioritize tasks and budget your time effectively to successfully take on adulthood and have an incredible college experience. Here are four mantras that can help prioritize responsibilities, tasks, and all the fun stuff in between!
1. If it’s not a hell yeah, it’s a no.
I had a great student mentor when I came to college who would often give us practical tips and advice like this. It’s easy to quickly get bogged down by a bunch of new commitments to clubs and non-curricular activities when you first start college. You want to make new friends and get involved and so often times students will over-stretch themselves by trying everything. That’s great! It’s good to be involved! But don’t commit to so many activities that you never have time for yourself. You’ll start to make connections and discover what you’re passionate about pretty early on.
You are not obligated to keep going to all the events you attended your first week of classes. If you find yourself groaning about going to a meeting after class—ditch it. If you aren’t excited about the items on your agenda, you need to change your schedule until you are. Your time is valuable, and you don’t have to give it to everyone who asks for it.
2. If it costs you your peace, it’s too expensive.
This next one kind of goes hand-in-hand with the first, but to a bit of a more serious degree. Sometimes, you can get tangled up into obligations that have financial ties or ties to your academic success, and it’s not quite as easy to get out of them as it is to stop going to a yoga class. Sometimes, you may find yourself in situations that aren’t great, but you’ll just have to toughen up and deal with it. However, if you are in a situation—an internship, research lab, a degree program—that not only adversely affects you when you are there, but always seems to be on your mind and bringing you down—get out!
Your peace of mind, health, and well-being need to be your top priorities. It’s easy to feel trapped, but there is someone on campus—an advisor, accountant, or specialist—who can help you get out of a situation that is too stressful to handle. Even if you think you can handle it or it’s not that bad, please consider the options available to you because they are out there.
3. Routine is the backbone of success.
It takes endurance to be a champion. To prioritize all of the things that college life will demand, you need to have a solid routine. You’ll be able to take on more responsibilities once the ones you already have become habits.
You need to start with the very basics of human need: rest, food, shelter, and well-being. You need to establish a daily regimen for yourself when you start your day. You need to eat breakfast, you need to practice good hygiene, and you need to make sure your rent and bills get paid.
Priorities are not the same for everyone—some people value their job more than their classes or value spending time with family over partying all weekend. There’s no right or wrong choice here. You get to decide what is important to you. But before you can take on a research opportunity, plan the perfect spring break, or volunteer on the weekends, you need to have a basic routine going.
4. Be patient with yourself, nothing in nature blooms all year.
Don’t give yourself too hard a time if you fall off of your routine or find yourself not being able to complete all of your tasks or obligations for a week. Everybody makes mistakes, and you’re just one person.
If you are in college, you are already taking on a lot with just classes. If you have one or two semesters where you need to scale back your commitments to feel more at ease, you should. You don’t always have to be kicking butt and taking names in college to feel like you’re successful. And if everything falls apart and you feel like you’ve failed at being an adult—know you are not alone. There are always people who will want to help you if you reach out to them. As long as you keep making it from one day to the next, you’re probably better off than you think you are.
