Balancing work, life and everything in between can be challenging. Even more so living in a pandemic where most people are spending significantly more time at home - working from home, acting as parent and teacher, and trying to fit in whatever semblance of normalcy they can.
I'm often tapped for how I balanced working full-time, attending an accelerated one-year Masters program, while keeping some sort of social life. Breaking down a project management principle into something more practical, I recommend creating a process and schedule for yourself. Just as you would account for your resource capacity within your resource plan, the same logic can apply when accounting for your time and how it is spent.
“As Project Managers, time is our most important stakeholder. The one variable we can control is our time and where it’s spent. My advice would be to go back to the basics: (1) Create a calendar, (2) Map out your routine, (3) Get a view of where your time is going, and (4) Find spaces throughout your week where you would be able to insert ‘other’ activities, such as school. For me, I carved out specific days/times of the week that I would dedicate to school. I did this knowing that some extracurricular activities would have to drop from my calendar temporarily.”
– Ann Campea ‘19
While simple in practice, I can attest that accounting for one's own time is not an easy task. It takes discipline. Start with the basics - buy a calendar, jot down your routine, and start to reflect on where your time is spent. While you can't add hours to your day, you can shift your priorities accordingly to accommodate the things that are most important to you.