If you’re like me, you value the steady routine that comes as a student or as someone heavily involved in their career. It’s nice to wake up and know exactly what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it, without having to worry about outside distractions or sudden changes.

Routine is great; however, lots of times, things come up and we are stuck with additional responsibilities or obligations to add to the already-long list, making it hard to balance anything at all. When this happens, it’s usually our custom to try and compromise between two or more activities, and when that doesn’t work out so well, we end up shirking on one or two (or even all) of the tasks we tried to handle at once.

This can get super frustrating, especially when the things you’re slacking on are the most important ones- like sleep or school work, and when we realize we aren’t allotting enough time to doing each of these, it just causes more stress to build up.

Therefore, if it’s getting overwhelming to deal with everything on your plate, I think it’s important that we address some ways to handle all of the stuff we’ve all got going on.

Time Management

This is perhaps the most helpful skill to have when dealing with multiple obligations in a day. Time management is so crucial to maintaining a balance. When figuring out how to tackle the growing mound of responsibilities, make sure to set aside enough time for everything. Every. Single. Task. Not just watching movies with your friends and going on date night. Yes, you do need time set aside to go to the gym for an hour and yes, you do need time to spend studying for exams. While it’s tempting to get that 9^th hour of sleep instead of waking up to go running, you don’t need it.

Intent

Alongside time management, this is one that you absolutely MUST stick by to ensure that you finish everything you need to. If you have no intention whatsoever of going to the gym and you don’t make yourself get up in the morning, then you just won’t do it. You have to be willing and committed to making sure you get through everything in your daily routine. Whether this means buying a planner and writing everything down so you follow it, denying yourself certain luxuries until you do it, or just giving yourself reminders on your phone, intent is everything. Even if the motivation isn’t there yet, just do it. Swoosh.

Accountability

It makes things so much easier when you have friends who are willing to come along for the ride. I’m not talking about friends who are constantly distracting you from important tasks or blowing up your phone to come hang out. I’m talking about friends who will take away the phone when they know you need to study, or friends who will wake up at 6 AM to go on a hike with you, or friends who just call you every now and then to see how you’re doing. Having an accountability partner prevents you from slipping on responsibilities and helps you feel less alone in what you’re trying to accomplish.

Self-forgiveness

There are many of us who, when we fail, feel the need to continually beat ourselves up about it even well after the fact. We flunk a test or gain a few pounds and feel terrible, because we didn’t push ourselves more, and while feeling a bit of remorse isn’t a bad thing, it shouldn’t overtake the resolve to be and do better. When things happen that you can’t do anything about, shrug it off and learn from the mistake. Remind yourself to be more dedicated in that area next time.

Flexibility

While this is on quite the opposite side of the spectrum as routine, flexibility is so important to maintaining a healthy balance. People who spend too much time making sure everything is perfect miss out on some of the greatest opportunities. While you should absolutely carve out enough time in your day for studying and getting sleep, don’t turn down a hang-out with your friends every time just to stay on schedule. Every once in a while, it’s good to let loose and relieve some of that pent up stress of the week by spending some time away from it all. Just make sure you aren’t getting TOO flexible.

It’s no fun when it feels like you’re losing control of all the tasks you have to do on the daily, so when it starts to get too overwhelming, try to follow these basic rules and you’ll find yourself a lot calmer. Also, my respect to everyone trying to juggle work, school, health, fitness, a social life, a relationship, and sleep all at once. You got this, man.