How I Manage Studying and Working

Well would you look at the time, I totally forgot about writing my blog! Now that is saying something about how busy I am. Studying and working can be very overwhelming and time consuming! For those of you that don’t know me, I’m currently working as a Clinical Care Coordinator at my workplace and also studying a Graduate Diploma of Nursing (Gerontology). I often encourage people at work to go towards further education and they ask me, “How do you juggle it all?” Well let me tell you, it’s not an easy task, but I will say that it gets easier with time. When you first start studying you can get stuck in a wall. You get overwhelmed and don’t understand how to write academically or write assessments. They don’t teach you how to write, just the content. Now this can be hard for most people and all I can say is to make sure you ask for help. Often people will be willing to help, you just need to ask. Look at the course content, there will be free options to help with your assessments. There will be library access with the University or Tafe and free resources, such as studiosity.  

Time management is also something you need to consider. I am not a planner and do not plan when I should look at my course content. I will often get home from work and just think to myself, “I need to work on my assessments”. For my study, I revolve around what the assessments are and what I need to learn. I look at how to do them and then refer to the course content. I do not plan on completing the course content; I refer to it. This saves me time and ensures I am still learning. I will be looking at the content to complete my assessment, giving me a reason to learn it. If there is no reason, I will get tired of trying to learn the content and just not do it.  I often get told I should plan to study X amount of hours a week or day. This would annoy me; I work in my own time.

Now if I don’t plan to study, how do I do it? Life is full of bumps and surprises; plans will never go the way you like so often I will adapt. I take each day one step at a time and think about that I have an assessment I need to do. I want to finish it as soon as possible and don’t try to think about having it done by a certain day. When I would get bored and look on my phone or watch a show, that is when I think to myself, I have an assessment to do, better get started. Some days I can smash out heaps, others not so much. I just think to myself, do at least one point or sentence. That one point or sentence can then lead into me looking at my course content because I need to question how to do it.  Some days can get super hard, but I just remind myself why I am doing this? If you are ever looking at studying, make sure you have a clear goal of where you want to go. For me, I just enjoy the challenge and need something to keep my brain active, or I’ll get bored at work. Everyone will have their own motivation to study, the first step, to get started is always the hardiest.

I don’t have a perfect system for study but that’s just life. But I do know that by giving it a go even just by a little bit each day will help. For all those that are studying and working, just know, you’re not alone and you’re doing a fantastic job. I don’t care if you’re failing badly or getting exceptional grades, we are all trying to better ourselves and that is what counts! Don’t compare yourself to others who seem more organised, everyone does things differently. What matters is that you keep going, in your own way and on your own terms. If you are struggling, don’t listen to other people criticize your choice, it’s not their life but yours! You may have tried and failed, but you tried! That is what counts. You’ve got this—one sentence at a time. There's always a rainbow after the rain.