The way life is nowadays causes it to be a true challenge to handle school, your social life, and work. Teachers pile on amounts of homework that are almost offensive, as if they are assuming that you have no life. The thing is that you do. Outside of the school, outside of those parties on Saturday nights, you have another life that is inside the small dark location called the “Work Place.”
The employers there expect you to go to work with hardly any sleep, carry unknown responsibilities, and walk blind on unknown land, causing them to resemble a monster of scary proportions. And after suffering through your classes and the constant war to keep a good reputation, the monsters expect you to somehow manage the addition of work life. You begin to ask yourself how to even begin to manage all of your daily challenges. I, however, have a few tips to fix this simply horrifying conundrum:
1) Create a calendar: Being organized is the key to success. If there’s anything that will solve your problems, it is taking 15 minutes a day to take a look at your life. Ask yourself when certain assignments are due, when the next party is, the next football game, and then add your work schedule. If it occurs that you have to alleviate time to work an extra shift, you can legitimately look at your life and see if there is a possible way. You may have to actually not procrastinate studying, or miss a party, but you realize that work is a precedent. You cannot just miss a shift. Which leads me to my next point.
2) Don’t spread yourself so thin: Volunteer State Community College claims that if “your work is creeping into the rest of your life, that’s a good sign that you have more on your plate than you can handle.” This is completely true. If you’re really thinking about quitting your job for the bowling team so that you can keep a better score on Wii Sports than your brother, but also keeping up with three different clubs on top of only getting 12 hours of sleep a week because you’re also in AP classes, you are definitely spreading yourself too thin. The problem with this is that when you’re spread so thin, you don’t have time to really enjoy where you are because you’re thinking about where else you have to be and what else you have to do. Not only are you missing out on these clubs and socializers, but also on work. And it’s causing you to cut things that you actually need for things that you want. Look at your priorities.
3) Remember why you are there: There is a personal reason or goal that caused you to take the job in the first place. So going through the anxiety and darkness can seem almost ridiculous when you forget your reasoning in the first place. When your employer yells at you or your friends call you a workaholic, whisper to yourself your goal three times. It is proven to be effective if you are about to do a regretful thing. Just keep your eyes on the prize.
4) Figure out what really matters: When trying to balance your life, you could leave out some very important things, or people, out. You need to make sure that the people you surround yourself with are who you want to keep after you reach your prize, who you want to celebrate with when you get a high grade on a test and who really matters. Make sure not to neglect anyone who you don’t want to simply because you don’t have time for them.
5) It’s best to have free time: The source of most of the anxiety caused by this reach for balance can be because you honestly have not taken a minute for yourself. Take about an hour out of your schedule to be unproductive. If sleep is what you need, do it. If your favorite show just got a new season on Netflix, it’s okay to watch it. While school, your friends and work are important things, you are also important. Make time for you.
The life of a teenager is hard. The life of a working teenager can seem overwhelming. However, it is possible. If you just follow these simple tips during those hard times of anxiety in balancing it all, you will survive. You can do this.
