“I’m a very busy person, and I haven’t got all day, but I help them, yes I do." - Ursula, "The Little Mermaid"

Anyone who knows me knows that my schedule is not only a monster, but that I encourage it to be. I will pack my days as full as I feel I can before I go crazy. I take 18 credits each semester, am incredibly active in student government, freshman year spring semester I was working almost 40 hour weeks as a waitress. Most of that were weekends as they were in my hometown.

The reason I am able to do this and stay sane is because of my amazing schedule. This helps me estimate paychecks, average hours worked per week, when meetings are, when scholarships are due…I honestly use it for everything. I am a waitress and I love my job, but as most of you probably know, I make my money on tips and so it is not a consistent wage that I make. I have an app that tracks my tips by day and will update which shifts or days of the week I make the most in tips as well as the knowledge on what I make from tips helps me track how much I can spend as extra money instead of what I need for tuition and other bills.

I can budget time for anything I need with a visual on how much time I will need or have left. I love it. I have a master schedule on my computer that is synced with my phone and I have a weekly one printed out. In my backpack I have a list of all the assignments that are due for any class in order of due date. I have an outline for essays written on a sheet of laminated paper so I can reuse it over and over again. I have a paper for goals and changing habits which has helped me to start working out on a daily basis. I even have a budget. Most of these outlines I have found from theorganizedstudent.tumblr and she is amazing! My work schedule is online and synced with my Google calendar and so whenever it comes out, it is emailed to me and automatically put into my Google calendar, which tells me about any conflicts so that I might have so that I can reschedule anything as soon as I know I will not be able to do something.

My schedule helps me know when I will be able to babysit, hang out with others, do scholarships, have me time and go hiking or volunteer. In the school year, it helps me know when I can work with my committees for student government or collaborate with other students for projects or assignments. I have many goals and the organization allows me to see if I have free time to work toward any goals. Some weeks I spend hours on completing goals such as applying for scholarships or working out and other weeks, I don't even do a Google search or open a scholarship book.

This helps me budget time for writing articles, doing homework, filling out a scholarship or finding a few that I could apply for, homework and most importantly, me time. Without my schedule I don't even want to imagine how lost and overwhelmed I would feel. When people ask me about meetings, it's super easy to just open my schedule and say pick a time instead of having to recall all my activities and meetings and then rescheduling in order to accommodate something I could have forgotten because everything goes right onto the master schedule as soon as it is planned.

My schedule is my lifesaver. It has honestly changed my life and relieved so much stress from me. It's easy to schedule in me time and know when I am able to relax. It helps me know when assignments are due, how much spending money I have and what shifts I want to take to make the most money at work. I love my schedules and because of my schedules, I am able to love my life again.