By Claire Enos
As you can all imagine (or remember), the life of a college student can sometimes be pretty hectic, and hard to keep up with. My life consists of social events with friends (such as birthdays, dances, dinners, etc), watching/reading the most recent books/movies/tv shows (I don't usually keep up with my reading, but I do watch quite a few movies and tv shows), homework (which I always seem to be struggling with), church and spiritual things (reading the scriptures, keeping up with my calling, etc), writing (which seems to get harder and harder as the years go by), and keeping up a healthy lifestyle. Some of these I am seriously lacking in.
I saw somewhere a chart which states the three important things to a college student: a social life, good grades, and sleep. It stated that you could only choose two things, that you couldn't do all three. I've learned this lesson the hard way, unfortunately.
When I try to focus on good grades and a social life I end up sacrificing hours of sleep. But when I focus on a social life and sleep I sacrifice my grades. Unfortunately for me having bad grades is not an option, and sacrificing a social life isn't exactly good for me either (I get depressed easily and not hanging out with friends makes me depressed).
So, I've been trying to come up with a balance for it all. I think what it all comes down to is what I make a priority. I've found my days run smoother when I start out by saying a prayer and reading the scriptures, even if it's just one verse. Another thing that helps is getting my homework done the day I'm assigned it, because then I'm not stressed out about not having it done the day it's due.
With NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) coming up I really need to start focusing more on prioritizing. Especially if I plan on participating that month on top of school and thanksgiving weekend (which I won't be able to write during) and friends and everything else I have going on.
We are all allotted a certain amount of time, we just need to learn to use it wisely. So, what I would like to ask all of you is: How do you prioritize, and which ways worked for you in college? I know many of you had to come up with some way to prioritize while in college, or after college and you had everything else going on. Any suggestions for me as I prepare to take on NaNoWriMo for yet another year would be awesome!
Thanks,
<3Claire
Balance is always a tricky thing -- mostly because something about us changes every day and our priorities often need to be shifted. It always helps me to remember to lay the foundation for the day first: prayer and scriptures (even if only a verse or two). I make a list the night before of all the things I think need to be attended to and then I put them in order of what needs to be done most or first. Do the "best" things first and the other things can fill in the spaces. Sometimes I have to let something go -- even though it might be a really good thing to do. hugs~
ReplyDeleteThanks Kari! I've been wondering this question for a while, and one of the biggest things I've been wondering has been answered so many times but it didn't occur to me until yesterday at Devotional up here at BYU-Idaho. The speaker gave us a list of things to do in order to be successful and I realized that was my answer. It just never hit me before. I always forget the main things, like read my scriptures and say my prayers and stuff like that.
ReplyDeleteI will have to try to do what you do (I sort of do that already, but I don't order them based on how important they are or anything. I mostly just write them down really fast before going to bed and usually I remember because it was the last thing I did before going to bed.)
Thanks,
<3Claire