Working While in School – How to Make It Work

Going back to school as an “adult adult” meant I knew I was going to have to work while going to school. I was divorced, I had “big girl” bills, and I was living on my own. At the time I went back, I was a full time employee at an online college where I had been working for 5 years. I was fortunate enough to have a supervisor who was willing to work with my school schedule and be flexible. When thinking about working full time and being a student, I was incredibly overwhelmed. How on earth was I going to make this work? Was I going to be able to do it all? It definitely took me a couple of semesters to figure it out.

Some of my top tips if you have to work while going to school:

• Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize! This is the key.
• Make a to do list EVERY day
• Plan your schedule using block scheduling (even things like the gym and homework time)
• Make friends, and divide and conquer. Having friends who you can work on homework and projects with is so helpful in getting everything done!
• Give yourself grace. You aren’t going to be perfect every time, and that is okay.

One thing that really helped me over the last few years was a good planner and utilizing it in conjunction with my Outlook Calendar. The planner I CANNOT recommend enough is The Dailee Academic Planner. In the beginning of the planner, it has space for long term course planning, places to write out your academic schedule for each semester, as well as individual class pages to track assignments. While I love all of these pages, what I use the most is the daily and weekly pages. Each week runs Monday to Sunday, which works best for my life.

Each daily page includes a time section that runs from 5:00 am to 12:00 midnight (one of the most comprehensive I’ve found), a to do list section, and a notes section. At the beginning of each week (typically on Sunday evenings) I review my Outlook calendar and make sure to write out my schedule for the week in my physical planner. This is when I time block and plan things to the best of my ability (while giving myself grace that things will change). At the beginning of each day, I sit down and write out my current to do list for the day. I also color code everything using different colored pens and highlighters. I’ve linked my favorites for you! I’m so excited to continue using it through grad school next year. Want to read more about why I’m going? Go here.