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DiscussDear A to Z,
I am having trouble balancing all of the different parts of my life. Between academics, my boyfriend, my friends and my extracurricular activities I find that by the end of the week I am completely wiped out and have had no time to breathe. Each week, some element of my overscheduled life inevitably gets left out or just does not get the attention that it deserves. Last weekend my boyfriend got mad at me for never being around, and then my friends got mad at me for ditching them for him when I was trying to make it up to him. I’m almost at the point where I just want to retreat to Olin for hours on end and pretend that none of these issues are happening, but then I realize it may do me more harm than good. How do I strike a balance?
Sincerely,
Overloaded
Dear Overloaded,
We all have run into this issue as Cornell students. I do not think that there is any Cornell student whose life is solely focused in one area. Most of us have a tendency to spread ourselves a bit too thin — it’s how we got those Big Red Acceptances in the first place. The way I solve this is by planning my day down to the half hour. I know this probably seems a bit insane, but even if one of those half hours is merely time for me to breathe it helps. On days that I feel like I will never get everything I need to do I merely write it all down and realize that there are more hours in the day than I first anticipated. Another alternative is organizing your time by the day or week, with a set of things that have to get done, should get done, and can get done later. Try one of these plans for a week and adjust as you see fit.
The next issue we must address is balancing your time between your friends and boyfriend. It seems like a conversation needs to happen with both of these parties about the pressures they are putting on you. It is bad enough that you need to keep up with academics and extracurriculars fighting for your time, you don’t need your friends to do this too. Friends should be there for support — not to make you insecure about your time management skills. Friends should depend on you but not be dependent on you.
So back to planning: In order to fit everyone in to your busy schedule, plan out your weekend as well, so that Friday may consist of a hockey game with the boyfriend and then out to bars with friends, and then Saturday is dinner with friends and a night with the boyfriend. You get my point. I believe the better planned you are in life the more fulfilling it will be, because eventually things that were seemingly stressful merely become a scheduled occurrence in your day. This also allows you to better analyze your effort / reward structure. Looking at your planner and seeing all of the things that you get done during the week can help you enjoy your downtime even more.
Stay Classy,
A and Z
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