Between working 45 hours at the office every week, taking 12 credits in my MBA program this semester, blogging and doing homework, I don’t have a lot of free time.Then you also have to through in the fact that I have a house and it doesn’t clean itself. Oh and my dogs can’t open the backdoor or take themselves for a walk.
Even with all of this, I love my life. I like to be busy but once my life slows down after this summer (I’ll be done with my MBA program), I will definitely enjoy the tons of extra free time that I will have. Yes of course I’ll still have work, but getting back around 25 hours a week from not having classes and homework will be nice!
When I’m done with my MBA, I know for a fact that I’ll still find ways to keep busy. There are so many things I want to do around my house, and possibly start another blog.
I attribute the fact that I can balance my work and life (and school),
due to having a good work-life balance.
Also, I still find plenty of time to enjoy life. Yes, I may not have as much time as before, but I never feel like I’m crazily running around (except right now of course since finals are starting soon). The BF helps a ton around the house also, so this helps balance everything as well.
Lately, I have also been trying to go to bed earlier, and waking up 30 minutes earlier than I usually do so that I can have more personal time in the mornings. Not having as hectic mornings has definitely helped out. I don’t get a ton of sleep, but instead of going to sleep around 1:30 am, I now try to be bed by 12 to 12:30 am. This is something that I can definitely still improve with though. But right now it’s hard since I don’t get home from class until around 10 pm, so it’s hard just to go to bed right after I go home.
Thankfully with my job, work stays at work. We don’t ever have to bring it home. This helps a lot with my work-life balance.
I’ve also been trying to schedule my posts ahead of time. Usually I just type it up the night before, but on Sunday I managed to type around 2 weeks worth of posts. It was all stuff on my mind and it seemed like the ideas couldn’t stop flowing!
Limiting my time online is also another big thing. I spend way too much online. I’m addicted, it’s sad. I can’t stop reading blogs and looking and Pinterest. Lately I’ve just been setting the computer down far away from me and surprisingly that has been working.
Here are my tips to have a successful work-life balance:
Create a schedule and set goals. Your schedule needs to be realistic and flexible to allow for anything that might pop up. Now I’m not saying you necessarily need to make an extremely detailed schedule where you say “from 8 am to 9 am I will be …..” I think you just need to have a general schedule of what you will do on certain days. You also need to decide what needs to be on the schedule and cannot be changed.
This could be your family dinner every night, your sleep schedule, whether or not you think partaking in a certain activity is needed, etc.
Make a to-do list. I have several lists in my phone and it feels nice to be able to delete one whenever I’m done. It also helps me to prioritize and realize what needs to be done. This way nothing is forgotten.
Put personal time in your schedule. This needs to be done immediately. Having a schedule with no personal time is not the best schedule.
Don’t go crazy when something might not go exactly as planned. There will be things out there that ruin your schedule, but don’t let them take over your life. Just move on!
Tackle larger things in life first. I always like to knock the biggest tasks on my list first (such as writing my 16 page paper). This makes the rest of the list seem not as intimidating.
Don’t try to do everything yourself. The BF helps out a ton, which I believe he should. Just because I’m female doesn’t mean I should do all of the household activities, and honestly, I suck at cleaning.
How do you balance work and life? Is it vacations, personal time, or something else?
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