College is a difficult period in our lives. We’re all working to get those degrees so we can have
the skills to get a job once we enter the real world and start supporting ourselves; mom and dad can’t support us forever after all. Although, getting our degrees mainly involves attending our classes, doing assigned work, and receiving passing grades, college is so much more than classes and homework.
So Much to Do: What to Do Though?
Colleges normally offer a lot of clubs and activities. Some us may be into theatre and are involved in all the plays and musicals. Others may be into computers and video games and have our own video game club on campus. Some of people may even be student athletes, and practice for long hours, go out-of-state for competitions, or spend their breaks at division tournaments down the coast. Then there are those who have work-study or part-time jobs outside of school, spending their free time to earn some extra money.
The bottom line: college is a busy time for a lot of people, and everything doesn’t just always fall into place. Doing a lot of things takes up a great amount of time and that time needs to be managed.
In the past year alone I have learned how to manage my time between school, work, and my hobbies. It was a stressful process, but it taught me some helpful tips, more specifically, three tips that I would like to share.
Stay Busy: It Can Actually Help
Sometimes having a lot on your plate can seem overwhelming, but the more time passes the more you learn to adjust to things. Also, when you are constantly doing different things, it will keep you moving and encourage you to get your work done quicker.
Often, if you have a lot of free time, and don’t have any plans to do something, you will get bored and actually slack off. This is something I have personally dealt with during the first two years of college. My grades weren’t necessarily bad, but I found myself doing a lot of 
things at the very last-minute.
However, this year, particularly last semester, I kept myself busy between classes, work study, and club activities. Of course there were times were I felt overwhelmed with all my school work and activities, but in the end it was all worth it because my grades turned out to be some of the best I got this semester.
So being busy is not necessarily a bad thing, sometimes it can actually be helpful.
Figure Out What the Top Priority Is
When you have a lot of things going on things in your daily life, there’s always the chance that some things will conflict with each other. In situations like these, you will often have to prioritize, in other words, decide which one is more important to do.
I can remember being put in this situation several times in the past year alone. It is often difficult to decide what comes first because you might have stronger passion for one thing as compared another thing that might seem more important at the moment.
List Your Priorities
Something I have found helpful in situations like this is to make a list of what is going on in your life at the moment and put them in the order of what is important at the current time. Below is an example of a list I made a few weeks ago.
- Class Work
- Job
- Musical
- Newspaper
- Social Life
Of course some college students’ list may have different things on it and some may not even have school work as their top priority. Although everyone is entitled to their own opinions on what is most important to them I think something that we all need to remember about college is that it is meant to help us prepare for the work force, and if we don’t do well and pay attention to our work, entering the workforce will be more difficult for us.
Either way, if you prioritize all the current things that are part of your life at the moment, it can relieve any stress you already have from try to figure out what to put first in your life.
Once you do this, something helpful that you can also do is get a planner and arrange times to commit to certain activities and jobs if possible. It might take a while to fall into a patter like this, but it can definitely help you manage your time more easily.
Have Confidence in Yourself: Don’t Overstress
Stress is something that is present in every college student no matter what how much or how 
little they are involved. There are many things to stress about: homework, projects, grades, jobs, internships, midterms, finals, clubs, sports, the list can probably go on forever. Although we simply can’t make stress go away by snapping our fingers, we can use it to our advantage at help us get our work done.
The most important thing to remember is not to get too stressed; easier said than done right? Even so, this is a true statement. Stressing out too much can have a huge effect on our mental, emotional, and even physical health, and sometimes this will cause us to stray away from our work.
I have had plenty of these experiences in my five and a half semesters of college and something I realized a few months ago is that it’s all about having confidence in yourself.
You’re Your Own Worst Enemy
If you don’t believe that you can’t get something done, then you most likely won’t because you won’t try hard enough. It’s all about your mindset. There is a common saying that “You’re your own worst enemy,” this is actually true for practically everyone. We can beat ourselves up when things don’t go the way we don’t want them to go, when we get ourselves in sticky situations, or when we do something wrong and get reprimanded by others for it.
Even if you know that you were put into a situation where you got a bad grade, overbook yourself, or stumbled on a speech, you can’t be too hard on yourself.
Something that I found helpful is taking at least an hour to you to relax. During this time, you can do something such look at yourself in the mirror and say to yourself “I can do this, I have confidence in myself.”
If you believe in yourself and put your mind to it, you can get through whatever you need to do.
Conclusion
Juggling all the things that college has to offer you can definitely be stressful and time-consuming. If you remember these tips though, you can develop more confidence and it will allow you to get through things a lot easier.
Chelsea's Blog 