With classes back in session and work in full swing, I myself personally don’t have a lot of free time—I go to school 5 days a week and work 6 days a week. I have one day off, from both classes and work, to recuperate for the following week; I’ll be honest it gets SUPER challenging.

Just think, I always have homework or something to study for and I have to make sure that I’m working enough hours between both of my jobs so that way I have the money I need for my expenses.

Balancing both is anything but easy and yet, in the midst of my hectic schedule I’ve obtained some pretty essential skills to carry through as I work towards my career, but the best part is I’ve got some awesome tips to share with all of you who may find themselves struggling with their busy lifestyle.

1. Befriend time management sheets and to-do lists.

These two are always at the top of my hierarchy of methods I like to use so I stay on top of things. Obviously, with a to-do, you need to list your tasks in order of most important to least important, but my tip would be to make sure you don’t overload yourself with tasks. Try to keep your to-do’s to a minimum with 5 tasks; that’s usually what works best for me especially if there’s a day where I have some downtime after my classes before heading into work.

The time management sheets are my holy grail and honestly without them, I don’t know how I’d manage to find time for everything. With the one I have, I’m able to see how much time I have in between classes before I have to work, and even afterward, to get whatever school assignments or tasks for the day completed. I always hear people say, I wish I had more time to do “this” or “that” when in all reality, there’s time to get everything done if you utilize your free time properly. By having one of these, you’re able to see what free time you have and it’s up to you how you choose to spend it.

So what’s it going to be—Netflix for 2 hours or getting a head start on a really important task? Sitting on your phone scrolling the Instagram for 30 minutes or going for a walk during that time? You be the judge.

2. Take naps, because who doesn't love naps?

I know it may sound crazy, but let this be the one exception to nap as you please at some point during a busy schedule. I personally recommend this, as I can vouch from firsthand experience, it really does help so much. Take into consideration if you were only able to salvage 4 hours of sleep, yet you have a 12-hour school/work day ahead of you, you are most definitely going to want to set aside some time to snooze for about 15 to 20 minutes during the downtime you have. Studies from the The National Sleep Foundation have found that “This type of nap provides significant benefit for improved alertness and performance without leaving you feeling groggy or interfering with nighttime sleep.”

3. Meal prepping might sound hard, but it's a time saver.

This may not sound like a common tip, but in my opinion, I think this deserves a spot on anyone’s list, especially if you love to cook as much as I do but you just don’t have the time to prepare a hearty meal every night. It’s important to ensure that you’re getting the right amount of sleep as well as getting the right amount of nutrients. I’ve been meal prepping since last semester and I can honestly say this method is pretty efficient; I’ll usually do my meal prepping on Sunday nights (my day off) and prepare enough meals for dinner to last me through Friday and then on the weekends I’ll usually eat out and just cook something small. Side note, not only does this save time from cooking every night, it prevents me from wanting to eat out more than I should thus allow me to save money in the long run. How great is that? A pretty easy method that has multi-benefits!

In addition to this, for a busy person, I’d also recommended eating snacks throughout the day to keep yourself feeling energized. There is an assortment of fruits and veggies you can incorporate into your diet that helps with this. Along with this, hydrate as much as you can and even consider taking a daily vitamin—I personally take a set if daily vitamins which include B-12; It's one of eight B vitamins that help the body convert the food you eat into glucose, which gives you energy.

4. Distress and disconnect from any distractions.

Let's face it, there are a variety of distractions that are around us on a daily basis. How easily are you distracted? For me, it honestly doesn't take much for my attention to shift from one thing to another and unfortunately, this can happen at the worst of times, i.e. when I'm trying to focus on homework, study, or complete any personal tasks that I have set for myself throughout the day. I've found that sometimes it requires me having to take initiative and be very disciplined---this may include logging out of all of my social media, turning off my text message notifications, or even simply putting my phone far away from me so I'm not tempted to look at it thus allowing me to focus on what's really important.

Like I said, it takes discipline, but if you can get in the habit of doing this, I promise you'll be able to stay on track with your priorities. For me, I'll tell myself "I'm just gonna check Instagram or Twitter real quick" and before I even realize it, I've wasted 30 minutes of doing something so unproductive when I could've been absolutely and entirely productive. It's also equally important to make sure you're in the right state of mind before committing yourself to a task or project, and what I mean by that is keeping your stress levels down. (which I know sounds impossible especially if you're constantly going 24/7) Take a deep breath, it's all going to be okay.

5. Find something that motivates you as you work towards finishing your tasks.

Ask yourself, "what's something that can motivate me." For example, I can manage to get anything done quickly and efficiently as long as there is music playing in the background. There's nothing better than listening to some catchy tunes or some soothing sounds as I suffer through my intense Statistics homework. Maybe music isn't for you then consider compiling a list of rewards/incentives to give yourself as you work through your tasks.

Let's say for scenario your goal was to finish a project by a certain time and you finish way before your goal time, then I definitely think that calls for some type of reward. As the semester goes on I'll use this strategy in regards to exam grades or things of the like---you can bet that if I manage to make an "A" on a Statistics exam I am most definitely rewarding myself with something grand. I deserve it after all, and you can and will be just as deserving whatever your goal is that you manage to accomplish and can then reward yourself too.

I could go on and on with tips, but I think I'll stop here. These very methods have been working great for me and I truly hope that those of you reading this feel inspired to try some of them out for yourselves and see how well they can work for you too!