Often, I find that a lot of people struggle with balancing school, work, and social lives.
Trust me, I've been there.
I had my share of this during my senior year of high school when I went to school Monday through Friday and then had to work every Friday and Sunday. Saturday was never enough time to hang out with all the people I wanted to see, and often I was so exhausted from the week that all I wanted to do was relax in bed all day.
This was so difficult to deal with, and I felt like I was unintentionally pushing away my friends because I never had any time.
This is a phrase we hear everyone we know say almost once in their life. No one has any time for things they really would rather do because it's always school, work, eat, sleep, repeat.
But I'm here to tell you that that's not true, and that routine doesn't have to be what you do for the rest of your life.
I found ways around school. I found ways around work. I found ways to do things that make me happy because it was extremely important for my productivity and my mental state.
We're not robots. We can't always do the same routine every single week. We'd go crazy.
My biggest advice is to get a planner. A planner will be your absolute best friend. Don't want to buy one or too lazy to write stuff out? Use your phone calendar. Add your schedule. Add when you have classes, what time they go until, what your homework is, and when it's due. Add your work schedule. What days you have it and what time you work until. Add plans when you make them with friends. What day it is, what time it is, where it is and what you're doing.
This probably all sounds like too much, but trust me, it helps you more than you can imagine.
I have a planner and write down EVERYTHING in it when I can. I have both a monthly and weekly preview, and in the monthly, I write down my work schedule as well as when I when I make plans with a friend (so I don't forget and flake on them, which is the worst thing you can do), and in my weekly preview I write my to-do lists where I include things like homework.
Being organized and making time for everything is completely doable.
Take a night off of work to hang out with friends you haven't seen in a while. Do homework a few days or a week in advance so you can go out to dinner with a friend on a school night. Make time for the things you love, because it'll only benefit you in the long run.
Balancing school, work, and a social life IS possible, but only if you put in the effort to make it that way.
