Hi everyone,

This post is partially to ask for advice, but partially just to vent. So here's my situation. I'm 21 years old, and I live on my own in an apartment with my cat. I go to school full time, and am almost halfway done an intensive one year program. I have 17 different classes each week, which adds up to 35.5 hours that I'm at the school, plus time spent at home studying and doing homework. The program is to study music producing and engineering, but my actual goal is to make a living performing as a singer/songwriter. Which means I need to practice almost everyday. Now that I've started making a concerted effort to lose weight, I just find myself completely overwhelmed. I feel like there are three huge things competing to be the top prioty in my life: School, music, and weight loss. Trying to do all three is just exhausting. Almost everyday I go to sleep thinking of all the things I didn't do. When it's 'ugh, i didn't do the dishes' or 'I didn't clean the litter box', it's not so bad. But when it's 'oh crap, I forgot about that assignment' or worse 'that exam that's tomorrow'... well, it's bad. I'm trying to excersize when I have the time, but either I really just don't have the time, or I'm just too damn tired to move. Aside from trying to train my cat to do the housework to try to give me a break here and there... I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm stuck with all these puzzle pieces and I'm trying to put them all together, but they just don't fit.

I'm sure a lot of you are in similar positions, trying to balance so many different aspects of your life and incorporating active weightloss. How do you do it? If you have any tips that might help me better manage my time (or the name of a fairy godmother), it would be very much appreciated. If you got this far, thank you for reading :)

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The program is to study music producing and engineering, but my actual goal is to make a living performing as a singer/songwriter. Which means I need to practice almost everyday. Now that I've started making a concerted effort to lose weight, I just find myself completely overwhelmed. I feel like there are three huge things competing to be the top prioty in my life: School, music, and weight loss. ...........



a) weight loss should not take any more time than not working at weight loss

b) "I need to practice everyday" -- I'm not in the business, but, until you're close to graduating when the prospect is approaching where your "time is money", being sure of a good weekly session would surely suffice

c) which leaves your schoolwork: You're under a time limit, and spent money on tuition etc., in a competitive environment where results count, and are scored, and affect your future very directly. Obviously all aspects of your schoolwork have top priority, everything else is secondary, but you ought to be able to fit most if not all of it in, though only rarely at the time of most convenience to you.

You mention housekeeping -- well, students are notoriously poor housekeepers, it goes with the territory. If you can do better than most, more power to you, but, it's not a 'priority' just now while you're in a competitive race to achieve academic status. Minimal sanitation and achieving food safety practices, may just have to suffice.

'Focus' on what's most important, just now. Ideally, after arriving home from school, list your tasks as "to do" lists for the next day, and categorize them, while listing them in order of priority (A: 1, 2, 3, etc.) as you see it (but, naturally, this is modestly adjustable due to changing circumstances when the day plays itself out) as:

a) Urgent and important: must be done this evening / tomorrow.

b) Important: must be done, preferrably that day, but in any event within the week or whatever deadline's involved

c) Urgent: well, if it's not "important", maybe this does not even have to be done, and is not worthy of any time being invested in it. The question to answer is: What happens if it's not done?

d) Everything else: just fit this in, when and where ever time permits.

In case the point is not self-evident: the obvious conclusion is that you really only should be spending your time on A and B tasks. C and D are definitely optional, until they get bumped into an A or B category.

People who make the most effective use of their time, don't even waste the two or three minutes here or there that occurs repeatedly throughout their days, that most of us aren't even aware of [always have some necessary paperwork or project you can work on to "fill in the gaps", when you're otherwise waiting for someone or something]. Keep in mind, there is no one on this planet who has more than 24 hours in their day. Some just make way better use of their time, than others.

rD

ps. PC / internet time can be an enormous and unproductive use of one's time, if you have any other tasks to deal with.

Thanks for the response r-D. I found it quite helpful. I actually found a 'To-Do' list option in the calendar on my computer that lets you rank item by order of importance, so I wrote out everything that I need to do. Now I just need to find the self-disclipine to actually do it, but that's a whole different story.

You mention housekeeping -- well, students are notoriously poor housekeepers, it goes with the territory... Minimal sanitation and achieving food safety practices, may just have to suffice.
That made made me laugh, because basically I do the dishes just enough to keep the bugs away, and clean the litter box when I remember. I have to sweep quite often though, because of the cat and the fact that my boyfriend is allergic to the cat.