Work/Life Balance
I work 40+ hours a week, I’m taking 6 credits (one is a seminar, one is a studio) - I already get up at 5:30 in the morning, and I cut off all my hair so it takes less time to get ready. I leave the house at 7. That means I have 45 minutes to spend on work in the morning. I get home at 9 on M, T, W, and by that time, I’m too exhausted to sit ( Read more... )
- Setting aside particular time for particular academic-related things. If I tell myself I'm going to work on X this evening and then Y tomorrow morning and then Z at the weekend, I'll get it done; if I tell myself I'm going to work on X and Y and Z before Monday, I spend all the time I'm working on one of them feeling guilty about not working on the others. I have a strong tendency to procrastinate, so I try to make the timeslots short enough that I'll have to move on to something else before I'm fed up of the first thing; otherwise, my brain gives up and goes wandering off anyway. Breaking things up into manageable portions helps me keep focused, though, because when it's just an unbroken line of Stuff To Do stretching to the far horizon, I don't much blame my brain for wanting to escape.
- Scheduling some decent exercise into my week, and making sure I can't duck out of it when I feel like I've got too much else to do (I go swimming with a friend every week, and we make each other go). It always seems like a short-term waste of time, but it pays off for my concentration and well-being in the long term, and it also makes it easier to relax properly when I'm trying to wind down.
- Gave up on piles of ironing, started collecting clothes that didn't need any (or that would lose their creases when hung up in the shower). Saves hours.
Good luck with it, and don't beat yourself up over time spent procrastinating, either. Apart from anything else, guilt saps time and brain-space and won't help you get anything useful done ;)
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