Study-life balance - Station SME

Many factors can affect your ability to reconcile all the elements of your personal life. In addition to your studies, there are many other spheres in which you may want to get involved: friendships, employment, family, romantic relationships, hobbies, social causes, and so on. We’ll suggest planning and time management strategies to help you feel less overburdened despite all the things you have to accomplish. You’ll potentially find benefits such as better concentration, reduced stress and increased well-being.

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A few examples

Studies and work

Working while studying can sometimes be a choice, sometimes a necessary means of financing. The literature tells us that, under the right conditions, work can help you to stay in school and even structure your schedules. Nevertheless, it’s important to establish a workload that suits you, since it’s also recognized that beyond a certain number of hours per week, work can be detrimental to studies.

Studies and family

When you’re a parent, studying or returning to school is a decision that requires rigorous organization of your time. There are many unforeseen events and daily challenges, not to mention the associated financial stress. One idea would be to see if your institution has any services, resources or accommodations available, and to inform your teachers, internship supervisors or teamwork colleagues of your situation as soon as possible. This will help them understand if there are any unforeseen circumstances.

Studies and sport

Studying while being a top-level athlete imposes a dual role and considerable demands in terms of time management. It’s not easy to juggle training, social and love life, physiotherapy appointments, weekly reading, team work, competitions and so on. Here’s a series of articles to help you balance it all.

Watch these two stories, in which Cassandra and Catherine talk openly about their experiences with mental health during their studies.

Cassandra’s story

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Catherine’s story

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TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

Identify your time “SNATCHERS”

Time snatchers come in the form of requests or demands that don’t align with your priorities and deadlines. They absorb a lot of time and energy in a day and cause procrastination! Of course, you don’t have to be perfect in managing your time, but taking the time to identify your time snatchers, or being aware of them, is a good first step. Here are a few questions to get you thinking at this level:

Do you tend to spend a lot of time on your phone, social networks or online games? If so, take a look at this page where we suggest apps to help you manage your apps.
Do your thoughts constantly lead you back to stressors (unresolved conflicts, unrealistic expectations, doubts) that prevent you from being available for other things? If so, plan a specific moment when these thoughts will be addressed. For example: “Tonight, I’m going to call my friend to clarify the situation”. And if these stressors take up too much space, seek professional help.
When you sit down to study, do you waste time because you don’t know where to start, or because your documents are a mess? If so, do the My 3-step planning exercise suggested above.

Evaluate the use of your time

To manage your time well, it’s important to first understand what you’re doing with it. Here are two tools to help you do just that:

Over a period of a few days, use this interactive chart to calculate the number of hours invested in the various spheres of your life.
Use the interactive tool: Je concilie. It’s a short questionnaire that lets you take a look at your work-study-family balance, and gives you access to feedback, food for thought and links to external resources.

Planning for the unexpected

Many unforeseen situations and events can disrupt your schedule when you least expect it. While you can’t predict “when” the unexpected will happen, you can be pretty sure that it will. So it’s best to let your schedule breathe and not overload it. It’s best not to overload your schedule and, if you can, set aside one or two periods in your week to deal with the unexpected. Imagine the time you’ll be able to recuperate in weeks when everything runs like clockwork!

Energize tout schedule

Unlike time-stealers who take energy away from you, there are habits and activities that can energize you. These include lifestyle habits such as sleep, nutrition and physical activity. They can also be short-term activities such as taking a bath, drawing, reading a novel, going for a walk, talking to a friend, etc. Paradoxically, it’s this type of activity, mistakenly thought to be less productive, that is usually removed from the diary when it overflows. We suggest, however, that you keep them jealously guarded in your daily routine. The important thing is not their duration, but rather their regularity.

Planning rest periods

Good time management doesn’t mean being efficient and in action 100% of the time. It also means knowing how to give yourself moments of rest to recharge your batteries and give yourself the right to say no without feeling obliged to justify yourself. The ultimate would be if you could set aside a block of 24 hours every week where you totally “disconnect” from your studies or intellectual work. If that’s not possible, you can at least try to block off a half-day when you have absolutely nothing planned. It’s good for the spirit to have the freedom to improvise a few hours a week.

Exercise: My 3-step plan

This exercise is simple and highly effective. It involves organizing your schedule for the day, week and session, based on a list of your tasks and commitments.

In preparation, make an inventory of the important dates and obligations you know about for the session (class periods, exams, postponements, personal activities, jobs, sports, family celebrations, travel, etc.). The list will be long – that’s normal!

Step 1 – My session: Organize each of these dates and obligations in a huge, clearly visible calendar (paper or electronic) where you can see everything that’s coming up in the session at a glance. This will allow you to see which weeks are abnormally busy and which ones you’ll have room for. Already at this stage, you can make some adjustments to your schedule if obligations get in the way.

Step 2 – My week: At the end of the week or at the beginning of the week, mark in your diary everything that’s “fixed” for the next 7 days: classes, work hours, appointments, sports, transport, sleep, meals, etc. Don’t forget to keep some “fixed” times in your diary. Don’t forget to keep study periods and completely empty periods to absorb the unexpected and recharge your batteries.

Step 3 – My day: This is where you fight procrastination! Every day, identify precisely and realistically what you want to achieve. If you’ve scheduled a study period, break down the tasks you have to do. For example: finish reading Chapter 2, write the History section of my term paper, revise pages 77 to 81 of the philosophy course, etc. You can also :

put them in order and do what you find most daunting first;
chop up each task even more finely when it seems heavy and demotivating;
get into the habit of completing each study period by identifying the next task or tasks you want to complete as a priority.

Services at your institution?

If you’re looking for professional help, most CEGEPs and universities offer a variety of support services for their students. Take a look at this page to find out what’s available at your institution.

Find out about the services offered at my establishment