Finding balance in a busy schedule!

Hi everyone and happy Friday! I know summer break is starting for some students by now but I also know that summer break sometimes means more work. Whether you're self-studying for the next semester's subjects like I am or participating in online volunteer programs, I wanted to make a forum post about finding balance in a busy schedule! Busy schedules can be really complicated to keep up with and can often fall into burnout. Despite this, we all still need to find the balance with everything going on in our lives while maintaining stable mental health! This can be something that can be applied after quarantine is over as well.

Finding Balance in a busy schedule:

Plan

Planning is essential. The first step to approaching a busy schedule is figuring out your personal way to plan your day or week out! You can use your calendar, a digital calendar, a diary, or any system to figure out what you have to do each day and what is coming up. The benefits of having a planning system are huge because it allows you to easily track what meetings or events are happening when and it also gives you a visual of how much time you have time to dedicate to other things as well! Planning a month or week's events are good, but it can also help to create a to do list each morning to write down what tasks need to get done and what tasks are a priority to complete first!

Use your spare time effectively

Spare time is different from breaks! Do you often catching yourself scrolling mindlessly through social media or binge watching TV shows while feeling guilty about unfinished tasks? Spare time that isn't being used for actual breaks and self-care can be dedicated towards getting ahead with low-priority tasks before they become high priority. For example, if I have around 1 hour between two meetings that I have to attend and I'm feeling energized, I can use that time to get ahead with studying for next week's test instead of waiting for the last few days to study. The time that one spends using spare time effectively eventually can add up to more free time in the future for fun things as well!

Take breaks and practice self-care

It's important to recognize when you need a break! If you're feeling overwhelmed or tired with everything going on, that's often a sign that it's time to step back and take it easy for a few minutes before getting back to it. Taking breaks is incredibly important in maintaining a busy schedule because it helps us recharge before we have to start using our emotional batteries again. Self-care is just as important as taking breaks! Self-care and taking breaks can get confused often. When you're taking a break, you can practice self-care activities or you can do other activities! Self-care activities such as meditation, journaling, or yoga can give us a sense of relaxation that we often need in our busy lives.

Have a support system

Having a busy schedule can lead us to be incredibly focused on our tasks and due dates! We often are extremely focused on what we're doing to the point where we forget about our friends and having a "social life" as well. Although it's important to maintain the balance between both, it's incredibly important to have a group of people you can talk to our ask for help from when it becomes too much. Support systems or groups of friends are important because they are the people that we can turn to and form meaningful connections with. In case of an emergency where you might need someone to vent out to or just someone to affirm you, support systems are there!

What happens when you burnout?

Lastly, it's important to anticipate the worst: burnout. I've written a forum post about burnout going into detail here, but I also think it's incredibly important to validate burnout as a normal thing to happen. Although normal though, it's good to see if we can prepare for it and what we can do to avoid it from happening. Taking breaks and practicing self-care are all good prevention tips for burnout, but when we should also think about how we take care of ourselves when we are actually burnt out. This can mean having a coping box or having some easy tasks to do when we're burnt out or simply knowing who our support systems are and knowing our own needs.

Discussion questions

1) Do you have a busy schedule? If you do, how do you usually manage it? If you don't, how do you manage your daily tasks and events?

2) What's your favorite clothing item you own and why?

Thank you everyone for reading this (longer) post and I hope everyone has a great day!

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