Working Full-time and Study, Small Tips to Handle an Effective Life

It has been five months since I was back to school. Life has been changing dramatically. It's not easy to handle everything perfectly when you're stuck in the middle of a full-time job, part-time or full-time study and family. Sometimes you're exhausted. Many times you are disappointed. However, never give up! I will give some tips that I've been using to maintain my life balance in this post.

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I'm ready for changes, so are you?

When I decided to get back to school and maintained my full time job, I made a firm commitment to my life. I was ready for changes and challenges. The school itself won't give me a better life. However, how I handle my life with schooling activities will bring me a lot of benefits. Although six months was short, I was still able to accumulate some good tips as followings.  

• When immigrating to another country, school is the base to develop my professional network. I do remember clearly how my network grew when I was in my first university back home. Now, I will apply the same concept to develop my meaningful network in a new country.
• You will be assigned to many group projects that you don't really know anyone in the group yet. You cannot tell how they work, how knowledgeable and what their styles are. In these cases, my advice is follow your feeling. If you have a chance to choose your own group, you don't want to group with the people you don't get along or feel good to work with from the beginning. Regardless of how much you try to work with those people, the emotional resistance will still affect on you and prevent your ultimate success.
• Let's use your time to talk to people. Don't just come to the class, sit there in three hours and leave at the end. As many activities you join, as many experiences you gain. You may not want to be famous, but you may want people to recognize you for your future job searches.
• Learn to be proactive in time management. You will have to prioritize tasks strictly. Sometimes, you need to sacrifice a small assignment for a bigger one if they both are due at the same week and your plate is completely full for the week. Life is not perfect, right?
• I prepare myself to keep focus and be on track for a long run because my study won't end at least in the next 1.5 years.
• Train myself the discipline to continuously stick with the course outline. Some professors don't even bother to remind you what comes up next. You are responsible for observing your course outline and adjusting yourself with it to avoid missing big events like the individual midterm or small assignments.
• I also consider changing my cell phone plan. Yes, it hurts my pocket, but it helps a lot for everything else including the group work. Since the time is tight, upcoming events are always urgent. Your flexible cell phone plan will avoid delay and deadline missing.
• When I have to work full time and study at the same time, to have time for my family, I need to shift my reading to public transit time. I do most reading parts on TTC. Some assignment brainstorming ideas are born on TTC or GO bus as well.
• When you lose things, you can get them back. However, when you lose heath, you lose it forever. I always try to eat healthy and keep exercising regularly. If you cannot do exercise three times a week, at least I make it once.
• It's always good to own comfortable shoes or footwear so that you can walk fast between buildings in campus and transfer between public transit vehicles.
• Bring fruit and a water bottle with you so that you can fill your body with vitamins whenever you need them.
• Never give up your hobbies, do less but keep them up. 

Good luck to the rest of your and my journeys.

"Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" - Steve Jobs.