Working while you’re trying to further your education can become a complicated juggling act and it’s very easy to get burnt out trying to fit so much into your life. Using some effective time management techniques can take a huge strain off your tired mind and will help you organize your schedule to fit everything in while reducing your stress.

Create a Schedule

Making a schedule for yourself and dividing your day up into blocks for work, class, study, and rest will give you an excellent guideline on what you should be doing in your day. For more complicated class or work schedules, it may be a good idea to keep two separate planners, one for work and one for school. In order to prevent yourself from burning out, leave chunks of time designated for relaxing or socializing.

Stay Focused On Your Current Task

This can be a hard one, but when you’re in class, forget about work. When you’re at work, put school and studying out of your mind completely. This could take some practice, but when you’re trying to relax and your mind is concentrating on worry and stress, you aren’t going to get any actual rest and you’ll just tire yourself out more quickly. Try to think only on what you can deal with at that time and you’ll generally feel much calmer and relaxed overall.

Prioritize Your Goals

Some people often try to give every aspect of their life their best effort and when you’ve got too much on your plate, this can burn you out very quickly. You could be faced with hard decisions, but prioritize your life in terms of which classes are most important to you and how attached you are to your job. If you have a clear idea of what your goals are, you’ll find it easier to choose which task to focus on when there truly just isn’t enough time left in your day.

Work Smart

It’s great to give everything your best effort whenever you can, but working smart instead of working too hard can help you accomplish more. Forcing yourself to study when you’re too tired will prevent you from getting the sleep you need and you probably won’t retain much information while you’re in an exhausted state of mind. Be realistic with the time you allow yourself for certain project as being over ambitious in your scheduling could leave you with incomplete work you’ve made unnecessary mistakes on.

It can be difficult enough trying to manage your time when you’re raising a family with a partner, but doing it alone can be even more of a challenge. It can be easy to feel like you’re getting just too swamped or that there isn’t enough of you to go around, but by practicing a few effective time management habits you’ll be able to get yourself back on track and make more time for just relaxing and spending time with your kids.

Use a Family Calendar

A calendar or planner that everyone has access to is a great tool to make everybody aware of each other’s schedule. Arranging rides, family meals, and chores can be much easier and more efficient when surprises aren’t sprung on you last minute. With a shared calendar, your children will also be aware of your schedule and will be less likely to try to plan things that would conflict with other important appointments.

Not only does this tool allow you to keep track of where you should be and what you should be doing throughout the day, it also helps your family understand the importance of managing their time and sticking to a schedule. You may also want to encourage everyone, including yourself, to keep their own personal planner where smaller things like studying, gym time, or leisure activities can be accounted for as well.

Stick To a Routine

Whenever possible, try to keep things on a routine schedule. It can make it easier for everyone to get into the habit of completing certain tasks in set amounts of time. It can also help make time for getting together as a family if you have a set night every week to do so. If there’s certain chores you or your kids keep putting off, a routine that you follow closely will create good habits of just doing them rather than thinking about them.

Social Scheduling

If your family is always short on time, try to avoid making too many social plans in advance for the weekends. You can always change your mind last minute, but when you’ve scheduled yourself for too many parties or BBQ’s you may feel committed to go when there are other much more urgent things you should be attending to.

Don’t Burn Out

While it’s important to stick to a schedule and use your time wisely, be sure you also schedule in some time for everyone to just relax. For these times, avoid answering the phone or checking email and allow yourself to truly rest and clear your head. When your quality time with your kids turns into work time, you’ll never really get a break and the time you spend with them may no longer be “quality”.

In order to increase productivity and efficiency, many people use certain time management techniques to keep them motivated and on track. You can get as complicated as you’d like with time management by using multiple computer software programs, calendars, and intricate schedules, but enabling yourself to get more work done in less time can be simpler than all of that.

Create a Basic Schedule

Even if you just make a short list on a scrap piece of paper of everything you need to get done in a day, this mini-schedule can go a long way in keeping you focused on what you need to do. You can get as creative as you’d like with your scheduling system, but be sure to indicate priority on your list and get the most important stuff out of the way first. It can also be a good idea to give yourself a rough estimate of how long you think each task will take so you can determine if there’s something that should be moved to another day, or done early if it’s quick enough to knock off the list.

Eliminate Distractions

If you can, turn off your phone and ignore your e-mail. If you work at home, arrange child care for your kids for at least part of the day to allow you to work without interruption. Unless listening to music or TV helps focus you while you work, turn off anything that provides distracting background noise. Don’t forget that your own mind can be distracting, so try to keep it clear and think only on the task at hand.

Take Breaks and Get Rest

Working when you’re tired or burnt out can result in either a lot of procrastination or a lot of mistakes. You’ll actually be saving time for yourself if you take breaks when you need them and get back to work once you’re refreshed. Producing low quality work as a result of tiredness will require you to spend more time fixing things later. However, you’ll want to be sure you’re only actually taking breaks when you need them and not using them as a reason to stall.

When you do feel like giving up on a project or calling it quits early on in the day, try to find reasons to motivate yourself. Making a list of goals can be a great motivational tactic to remind yourself what you’re working towards. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, complete a few of the easier tasks on your list so you can cross them off as that could give you a bit of a moral boost that will encourage you to continue on.