Many college students find themselves short on time, short on energy, and a lot of times, short on sleep. While many students are doing their best to balance school, work, and a social life, most students struggle to make time to be successful in all three of these areas. Normally it’s because a student spends too much time on one or two areas, and not enough time on the other. While college students have a lot to worry about and balance, there’s a simple solution to managing your time and keeping your life in balance: focus on what matters most.

This all leads back to the simple concept of having priorities. There should be certain things in your life that came before other things. College students mix up their own priorities a lot of times. This can be because there is just a lack or focus, or because they are mixing up their own priorities with their friend’s priorities. Unfortunately, some students allow others to get in the way of their own individual success and happiness. This is why it’s important to know your priorities, write them down or engrain them in your head. Your own individual priorities can help guide you to success if you have them in line and if you ensure that you are always following through on them.

Focus is another very key skill that many students (including yours truly) struggle to grasp. It’s so easy to get distracted by what’s on our TV, laptops and phones. It’s easy to get sidetracked from what you’re doing because of what’s going on in the group chat or because of what’s trending on Twitter. As great as texting and social media is, sometimes it’s just best to put the phone face down and focus on what needs to get done. While your phone can get in the way of some things, your mind can very easily mix up your priorities.

In college, a lot of students simply spread themselves too thin. Whether it’s taking too many credit hours, being involved in too many clubs, working too many hours or spending too much time going out, going overboard on any of these isn’t necessarily the best thing to do. I’ve been spreading myself too thin since last fall, and I can definitely feel it.

Balancing school, work and clubs can be a very big challenge. We all want to be successful in our own ways, but having a lack of focus now might hint that you will lack focus in the future.

As many have told me, if you think your life is tough now, just wait until you find yourself in the real world.