Balancing career, home, and self
jdm0804
Posts: 98 Member
Hey everyone, I just thought I'd put this question out there. How do you balance your lifestyle? Work, school, significant others, exercise, family, etc. all put pressure on your time; so how you keep all of your plates spinning?
For me, I work full time and go to grad school 2 hours away from where I live and work. I have class two nights a week, and a wife who is in grad school in our hometown. We spend a lot of time comparing notes and talking about our classes. Unfortunately, exercise and healthy eating often get relegated to the "later" pile. I've recently decided that I need to make it more of a priority, so I'm running 3 days a week when I don't have class. Even that is a challenge!
So what do you all do?
For me, I work full time and go to grad school 2 hours away from where I live and work. I have class two nights a week, and a wife who is in grad school in our hometown. We spend a lot of time comparing notes and talking about our classes. Unfortunately, exercise and healthy eating often get relegated to the "later" pile. I've recently decided that I need to make it more of a priority, so I'm running 3 days a week when I don't have class. Even that is a challenge!
So what do you all do?
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I would like to know the answer to this as well. I always feel like something gets relegated to the wayside. Right now, that thing seems to be the house-cleaning. I'm in grad school in a PhD program, working a part time job, training for a half marathon in May, and trying to make time for my boyfriend and other friends. When I do all of that, my house seems to fall apart. When I shift the focus to the cleaning, it's school or sleep or exercise that take a hit. I haven't found that magic combination where it all seems to work yet.
Good luck to you!0 -
This is definitely the biggest challenge I've found so far. I'm working full time, working on my Masters, and planning a wedding (more assisting my fiance). I've always been a very fit and active person but seem to be giving more excuses to put the gym off until tomorrow. My big thing is I just need someone to hold me accountable and keep me motivated.0
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I think the consensus will be that you're not alone! Right now I'm going crazy because we're planning a move and we both work full-time, so packing/deep cleaning is getting in the way of pretty much everything. I'm hoping that once we settle into our new house that I can start working on some better time management skills. Work, my husband, and taking care of myself always come first though.0
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I am a law student, with a part-time internship and involved in organizations at my school, so I definitely relate to feeling unbalanced or wondering how or when I will find time to do the things that matter to me or that need to get taken care of at home. One of the main things that helped me was making time to workout at home instead of trying to go to the gym because I realized it just wasn't as feasible for me to go to the gym as much as I like the machines there. I also try to figure out ways to streamline tasks, make them simpler or faster/easier to do, for instance I try to prepare my food and meals once a week after grocery shopping because I usually don't have time during the week to cook.
I hope this helps. Feel free to add me as a friend to stay in touch.
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The only thing you can really do is to sit down and decide what is important to you, what in your life is non-negotiable. It's all about priorities, you can always find time for something if it's important to you. Look at your life and analyse how you spend your time. There will usually be some area where you are wasting time that could be better spent elsewhere.0
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It's so hard to manage everything.. I used to be a gym junkie! I lost a ton of weight when I was in jr. college and living at home with momma and daddy, but when I went to a senior college and moved out on my own and made new friends and started student teaching and got engaged, I started slacking on the gym and the diet and gained most of it back... I started at 271 and this time I started at 251. Now I'm out of college but have three jobs (because I'm apparently crazy) and I'm married and have 3 dogs. I have to juggle everyone's schedule and decide what needs done and when. It gets overwhelming. The only way I've gotten back on track is with help from my husband. Together we get everything done and make time to work out. We eat a lot of crock pot meals and baked meals. Having a support system is the only way I've done it! I'm down to 226.1 today!0
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It's an issue that never gets any easier, I'm given to understand. I have an issue with living in the future (like saying that I will start working out more when I graduate), so what helps me with that is concentrating on what will benefit me now. I believe that it is a very common theme in this stage of life to get mixed up in future planning to the point where present focus is lost.
Accountability and social embeddedness can be very powerful tools to help out! I noticed that a lot of us have someone to work out with, and that helps a lot! Having someone to encourage and someone to meet is a darn good reason to do what you've set out to do!
I want to be genuine when I say to those that have posted in this thread and others that it's all about making it a priority (the assumption being that it is objectively more important than other priorities like work, sleep, school, and relationships) that reading those statements inspires some defensiveness and even anger. That is to say: Know your audience. If I walked into a gym and said "I have low self-esteem, and I want to work on my physical fitness as a part of improving it," the last trainer I would want would be the one who yells at me that I'm not making it enough of a priority. I would want words of encouragement and understanding. Not trying to troll or be mean, I just want to make sure we're all being supportive!
Just some food for thought!0
