Keeping yourself on track with life and school work is not simple!  Adult students often wear many hats: parent, worker, classmate, friend, etc.  Many times these roles can conflict with each other.

School and life balance is obviously important in both aspects of your life.  Students might place a higher priority on their school work instead of their personal life.  Actually, this can lead to poor academic performance because optimizing your personal well-being is critical to being a successful student.

Many students juggle work while attending college.  This can lead to obligations that compete against one another.  Set priorities for yourself.  Is it possible to do your homework on your lunch break?  Where else can you find little breaks in your schedule to read, write or post assignments?

Quality relationships are also important in all of our lives.  Focusing strictly on your academics might lead to crumbling personal relationships.  Can you set limits for yourself that don’t minimize your relationships with others?  Take a mental break from school work and socialize with friends and family.  Maintaining personal relationships while attending college will also be a good stress reliever for you.  Sometimes you just need to take a break from school work and relax with a friend.

Learn to manage your time.  Figure out what time of day you are most productive and use that as study time.  Place priorities on your time dedicated to your family and other relationships you might have.  Your mental well-being, as well as your health is vital to you being successful as a student.  Stress can also lead to unsuccessful academic endeavors.  Learn to be an over achiever, not a perfectionist.  Time management might be the most important aspect of being a successful student.  It is very important for you to be able to have time to study but it is just as important for you to have time to step away and have personal, family and social time as well.

Time is something that we all want more of but unfortunately there are only 24 hours in a day.  Figure out a routine that works for you.  Everyone’s schedules are different but everyone must deal with the same amount of time in a day.  You can do this!