I’ve been blogging for about a little more than a year now and in more ways than one, it’s changed my life and allowed me to develop my creative skills and learn a lot about photography and blogging along the way. I wouldn’t say it’s been all fun and rainbows. A lot of the time, it can actually get quite stressful. Blogging is not a full-time thing for me, and I would say it’s more of a part-time if anything. I’m currently in my final year as a full-time student studying a Commerce/Media degree with a major in marketing. I live about an hour away from my university and usually spend 2 days of my week attending classes and more during assignment periods. The other 3 days of my weekdays are spent at work as a marketing coordinator for two businesses. On weekends, I dance as an extracurricular hobby as well as blog in my spare time and shoot with friends.

I have always believe that balance is the key to everything. This year there have been moments where I felt the stress and have had a few moments where I wanted to quit and give up, but along the way I found some handy tips and tricks to keep myself organised and motivated so I can do all the things I love! In this post, I’m going to share with you how I try and balance blogging + uni + work + everything else. Hopefully you can apply this to your everyday life and these tips will help you like it did for me.

xx

GO PORTABLE

I used to own a Macbook Pro with a built in CD drive because I thought it would be useful when I wanted to watch DVD’s and movies. Well, that thought didn’t last very long. My old laptop was so heavy and I remember having to bring it to university from morning until night time. It wasn’t until I invested in a new Macbook Air that I discovered, the lighter the better. Now I can work on-the-go and bring my laptop anywhere without having to worry about my back hurting. My laptop is my one source for everything. I work on it, I blog on it and I attend uni with it, so to me it’s a very important step to make sure I can take it everywhere with me, especially when I have things to do!

KEEP A DIARY

Keeping a diary is a good way to track your current to-do list and make sure you get everything done on time. When I juggle work, uni and blogging, I find that writing things down helps the most so I know what I have to get done in order of importance. I got my 2017 planner from MiGoals. What’s great about this is that it functions as a diary, but also as an inspirational goal keeper to get you motivated for the year. There are sections where you can set goals for yourself and pages for you to reflect on what has happened in the past few months and how you can improve to achieve your goals by the end of the year. It’s perfect for people who want to get organised in a visual manner, and works for me the best because I feel good ticking off the things that I’ve done already!

USE A CALENDAR

Only this year I discovered the usefulness of calendars built in onto your phone. My calendar (that is synched with both my phone and laptop) has been my holy grail in terms of trying to balance everything thats happening in my life. When I know that there is an event happening, or I need to block out a date for a certain reason, I put it straight onto my calendar with a description and a time. Then as more things pile on, I can check when I’m free or if things will collide with each other. It keeps me on track and most importantly, calm. I’m the type of person that will stress out if too many things are going on, so having a calendar makes it easier for me to see which dates I’m available and what I should be preparing for next.

Here’s a little preview of what my calendar looks like:

As you can see, there is always a lot thats happening! But at least everything is laid out nicely and I know in advanced whats going to be on, on what day and such. I have different colour codes for what I’m organising (Uni, Remember, Birthdays, Outings and Need To Do), as well as the times so I know when I can double book two things on one day and when I can’t. Just this simple step has saved me so much stressing out and time when I need to get organised. It’s best because I can check it on the go too so if someone asked me right now, I can pull up my current schedule for them.

GET YOURSELF MOTIVATED

This is my last tip to you: GET YOURSELF MOTIVATED! It might seem a little cliche, but words of wisdom and kick-ass quotes can really go a long way sometimes, especially if you’re struggling with getting things back on track again. I know I’ve been there. Sometimes everything just feels like a bit too much, and I start sacrificing one thing for another: Should I stop blogging for a bit to focus on school? Or should I let my grades slip to make more time for work? It happens to the best of us but the important part is how we bounce back from it. I have a whole bunch of motivational quotes and they really do give me that extra push I need to succeed in doing the things I love. For example, I once bought a poster that read “DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY”, just because I needed it to remind me that one day I’ll get to where I want to be. I have notebooks all over the place that remind me of my ability to work hard and to #OwnYourTime like the one above. Things like this can really get you hyped and power on to the finish line.

Organisation isn’t about perfection. It’s about efficiency, reducing stress, saving time and money, and improving your quality of life.

– Christina Scalise.