Work Life Balance with Amy

Maintaining a steady work/life balance is essential to keeping healthy and not burning yourself out. We all know that university comes with its own struggles and stresses that often involve heavier work balances as the semester progresses. With the ever-growing weight of looming assessment, we tend to find ourselves leaning into one side of the balance or the other.

Focusing too much time into your university or work commitments is the easiest way to end up burning out before the end of the semester, especially if you find yourself in situations where you’re dealing with personal stresses on-top of these workloads as well, and let’s be real, university is the time in our lives we’re often dealing with daily personal stresses!

On the other hand, spending too much time on down-time or the ‘fun’ life things is the best way to fall behind on your work. This can result in lesser final grades and increases in stress and anxiety during heavy assessment periods as you’re left scrambling to get everything finished!

So where do you draw the line between the two you ask? Unfortunately, while I cannot provide you with an answer that will 100% work for you every time, I do suggest finding way to corporate work into your daily life tasks. The balance is supposed to be one that ensures that while you’re still getting tasks completed, you’re also making sure to take time out for yourself and your personal and social life.

Want to watch the latest episode of Killing Eve but desperately need to get your lecture notes finished? Why not try watching and working at the same time? If that doesn’t work for you, the rewards system is the easiest trick in the book.

Find something that you want to reward yourself with for getting through your daily tasks. Whether that means you’re rewarding yourself with an episode of a show after every individual task, or you’re enjoying a bigger reward at the end of your working day, that’s up to you to decide, but this is often a foolproof way to get through your to-do list! Particularly if there’s something you’re really craving or wanting to do.

Finding the balance between your work and life schedules is completely up to you and how you work through deadlines. One of the best things about university is you truly begin to understand your learning style and what are the best (and worst) ways you get things to stick in your brain. It’s important to know how to structure your days so you’re taking breaks to eat, drink, and breathe, yet also making a start towards your final goals.