Student Blog: Managing Such A Busy School Life!

The new school year is coming closer and closer every day. While I’m sad that summer will soon be over, I’m excited for my junior year in college to begin. Of course this includes having to get back into a time management routine. As people in theater, I’m sure we can all relate to the stress that is staying organized with rehearsals, classes, work, etc. I’ve been able to find ways that keep me from feeling overwhelmed throughout my school career and hopefully you might find them helpful! 

It’s always at the beginning of the semester where I have to buy a planner. This has been told to me time and time again that the best way to just know what’s going on in your busy schedule is with a planner. Once I have dates for rehearsals and when I get due dates for classes I immediately write them down. This way I can have an idea of what is a priority and what I’m doing on certain days. I know last semester I had a class where I had to write essays every other week and because I know myself I knew I’d be stressed because it intertwined with rehearsals as an assistant stage manager where I would most likely be busy working on that. With the help of the planner I had certain parts of my day blocked out just to focus on the writing class. This brings me to my next helpful tip.

With planner in hand I can easily predict what is happening on the daily, but sometimes work piles up and things occur on the same day. I love to procrastinate, so to tell the truth sometimes my planner is just there as a reminder of what’s to come and I think I have days to do something but it ends up sneaking up on me. So I figured that I could always use my phone as an alarm and checklist. Before I have to go to rehearsals, I take an hour or two for practicing music, another hour for homework and then with what remaining time I have before a class or other scheduled work hours, I give myself some me time (so I can stay sane!!) Then it’s off to focus on work and whatever show I’m doing! 

It’s always important to stay organized and that can easily get lost when you have so much piled up in your life! With a couple tips like these, hopefully you will be able to balance your work, theater, and class time! And be sure to give yourself a little mental health break as well!