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Working and studying and children: Oh, my! It’s the trifecta of busy-ness that can really affect those who want to further themselves in life but find themselves roadblocked. That’s why finding a balance is so important.
Without the proper preparation and support, you could struggle with finances, academics, self-care, and childcare. These are not balls you want to be dropping.
If you want to further your career, or change your career entirely and you’ve decided to go back to school, then you need to find a balance. Whether you decide to hire a babysitter or a childminder from care.com or you decide to talk to your university or work about balancing your hours, finding a balance between all of those things that you want the most is so important.
You deserve to have the very best of everything, but you need to have the right support to get there.
Let’s take a look at some of the things that you could be doing to find a better balance between your working life, your studying life, and the time you spend with your family.
Lay It Out
Take a look at your course syllabus and plan ahead. Almost every student who is parenting while they study faces the same challenge. You have to get to classes while balancing the kids, and knowing the school hours can sometimes fall within your class, times are difficult.
If you don’t have a village, family, or friends around you that can pick up your kids when you need to, you need to make sure that you’ve looked into your syllabus and planned ahead for your classes to be around your kids as much as possible.
From there, you can then find a childminder or a nanny to help you with pickups, drop-offs, and babysitting in between. Knowing your schedule in advance will help you to plan correctly.
List Goals
List some weekly goals. Often, it can feel very overwhelming to try and get everything done. However, if you can set the right goals, you’ll be able to keep your home schedule and your work schedule balanced.
Always bear in mind that exams are going to fall at the same time that you’re looking after your kids and during their school holiday. You also need to balance both of those things against any hours that you take from your job.
One of the best ways you can stay organized is to put down some weekly goals to keep you focused.
Meal Prep
Get meals prepped in advance. If you want to make sure that you can still look after yourself while tending to all of your responsibilities, meal prepping for an afternoon a week can really help you.
You can put your own health and well-being ahead and make sure that your nutrition is on point. This will impact your health and your academic and your workplace success.
Don’t forget about your health as well as your children, because you do need to eat and you do need to be fueled and ready to go. This is the ultimate way to find balance.
