A Few Tips for Balancing School and Work

December 3rd, 2013 by Search Influence Alumni

iStock_000000748325XSmallHere at Search Influence, we have several employees who are still in school in addition to working here part-time or full-time. Some are in grad school and some are in undergrad at schools in the area like Tulane and UNO. Since I am not one of these ambitious employees, I thought we could all gain some insight from them in time management and life skills. I asked a few of my co-workers questions like “Why are you doing this?” and “How do you do it?” I got some thoughtful responses with a few common themes.

1) Know Your Priorities
Zachary has only been here for a month, but he already knows to be careful not to “load too many responsibilities on yourself, or you will crash and burn and fail at all of them.” If you intend to be an active member of several school clubs on top of working 20 hours a week, you will probably end up overwhelmed. Work, school, and a couple other activities will be plenty enough to fill your time.

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2) Figure Out Your Interests
Mary says that working at a place like Search Influence where what we do is meaningful has made the stress level of balancing school and work a lot more manageable. If you like what you are doing (whether that’s your class subjects, job description, or extracurricular activity), you will be more likely to thrive since you are interested in all your daily activities.

3) Get You Some “ME” Time
A common theme for all the employees I interviewed was that you must set aside some time each week to unwind from the chaos of balancing school and work. Figure out something that makes you feel relaxed like reading, exercising, or hanging out with friends. If you can set aside a whole day to de-stress, that’s the best case scenario, but even an afternoon should do the trick!

Search Influence is constantly hiring for new positions, so if you think you can handle the time management challenge of school and work, be sure to check out our employment opportunities page!