How To Make Time To Do Everything You Want To Do (College Student Edition)

Life moves pretty fast and it can be overwhelming at times as if you’re behind everyone else on social media, or if you feel like you’re doing enough. The answer to this is that you’re wrong for both. You are doing enough and you are not behind on everyone else. Everyone has their own path for their life and that’s what makes us all special. We all work in our own ways and receive success and cool accomplishments at different times in our lives.

Social media only shows the highlight reels of our life and everything that people are doing which is cool in the moment. But in reality, we are all facing or hiding something from the screen that we don’t want others to see. And that’s totally fine. I would not want the internet to see videos of me having a terrible day where nothing is going my way, but that’s life! We all live and learn from everything.

Today we are covering everything you need to know from tips on how to stay organized, finding time for doing what you love, spending time alone, having self discipline, saving money, and more! These are some personal favorites which I have learned over the years as someone who has balanced school, work, and personal projects such as my blog, doing content for brands, and running a podcast. If you have some tips that you use which help you manage your work, let us know in the comments!

If you love any of these tips and have gotten inspiration or want to try to recreate them, leaving a comment and let us know on our instagram @glamourandguide!

Setting A Routine For Yourself + What You Need To Do

Before you even think about creating a routine for the work you’re going to do, you first need to take a piece of paper or grab your journal and list down everything you know you have to do or a typical day in your life. For example, you may want to list down the days you have school, when you work, or some days where you have an internship. Then, jot down the projects or hobbies you want to work on such as your blog, or a podcast, drawing, reading, content for a brand, and more. Just get down everything onto a piece of paper of what you typically have to tackle during the week. This is essential because it is how you are going to figure out what routine you’re going to make.

After everything is written down, now you need to look at a calendar and give yourself a rough draft schedule on another piece of paper of what a schedule or routine can look like for you. For example, maybe you only have one class on Monday so you can work on a blog post and make one Instagram post. Then Tuesday you can have two classes so you only have time to do homework and some blog posting planning. Wednesday and Thursday you can work on your internships and Friday you can also do your school work again and go out to shoot content, or meet with a friend for lunch, then go to work. This all depends on your schedule and what you day to day life is like. It’s all about how much you know you can handle in a day and what you are willing to do.

Don’t give yourself a packed schedule every day because you want to feel productive if you’re going to give your 100% effort into everything you do. You want to see results and success from what you’re doing, so make sure your heart and soul is going into it.

If you stick to giving yourself a routine everyday with the work you have to do, and making sure you also give yourself a day off to just relax, then you are going to find doing work much easier and lot more fun! Work can sound dreadful but when you’re doing it the right way and you have a routine for getting it done correctly, then it’ll slowly be more enjoyable.

Using A Planner, App, or Spreadsheets

Now that you’ve mapped out a routine for what you have to do, the days you’re most busy, days you want off to relax, and more, you can now input this into a system either online or in your planner. As a college student, everyone can either be 100% online for how they like to get their work done, or they can be someone who still likes the old fashioned pen and paper. I’m a mix of both and I love to prioritize a spreadsheet on Google Drive as well as a physical planner. As someone who takes content creation seriously and working with brands, plus being a college student, I keep both of these separate and have two planners for both.

In a planner which you can find on Amazon, Walmart, TJ Maxx, Target, and more, they are cheap and easy to find a fun one that you like. You can even get some colorful pens and highlights to get excited for this. Remember, you want this to be enjoyable, not another workload on your shoulders.

You can also use spreadsheets to track and manage your routine. I personally LOVE using the spreadsheets that Google Drive provides because it’s simple, easy, and there’s an app so if I’m not home to do it on my laptop, I can always change or edit my schedule through my phone. It’s extremely convenient and perfect for anyone on the go. In the spreadsheets, make separate columns. If you have a lot to do, I would recommend making one column for due dates and deadlines, another column for the headline or short summary of the work you have to do, another column for the summary and details of the work you have to do, and in the last column, a checkbox of if you completed it or not.

I will attach an example below of what my personal spreadsheet looks like for anyone who may need a better visual. When you have a visual view of the work you have to get done, it’s easier to see and map out when you have to get it done by. You can say you need to get this assignment handed in by next Monday and it’s Thursday, but when you see it on a calendar, it’s a lot closer than you think so get to work.

Finding A Mentor

Finding a mentor doesn’t mean that is has to be the way you probably think it is where you message someone online or email them and ask for coaching on how they do what they do. A mentor can simply be someone you admire online or in person and you want to aspire in a way to do what they do, but with your own spin on it. For example, it can be your dream to become a famous blogger and you may have a blog that you always read and look up to. But you don’t want to copy exactly what they do and try to be them in every way. You want to do your own thing and achieve your dreams that are unique to you, not copying those around you or those you see online.

When first getting into the social media realm and I was looking for a mentor, I had many people I followed online that I loved and wanted to aspire for their lives but I realized the more I kept comparing my life to theirs, nothing would happen for me. Comparison is the thief of joy as they say so instead of looking at these people online in jealousy or in fear of me not being able to accomplish what I want, I turned my entire mindset around and started to look at them as inspiration.

This is something you can do as well in order to find new ways to achieve your goals. When you’re positive and find someone online who you truly love, you can see how they are doing what they do and how they got to this spot.

Find someone on the internet, or even on LinkedIn who has the dream job or achievements you want and don’t be afraid to message them if you want a deeper insight. Ask them if they have a few minutes to spare on how they got to where they are and any obstacles they overcame if they have advice for you.

If you don’t want to reach out, you can simply go through their LinkedIn as well, see their previous achievements such as job roles or internships, and go about that on how you can try to do the same. Find internships, find jobs, find anything you can to get closer to your goals and use those online or those around you to inspire you to do better and encourage you that you can achieve everything you want and you will.

Time Blocking

Blocking out chunks of time that are dedicated to certain tasks or activities is a great way to really focus your time on what is important. When we sit down with a huge to-do list or tasks that we want to take on for that day, it’s so important to not just try to check everything all off without a strategy. Time blocking is great because if you have 3 things to do for the day for example: write a blog post, post on Instagram, and do your school work, you can easily put these into a timely manner.

From 10-11:15, you can sit down with no distractions, phone on do not disturb, and some light music on in the background to get your blog post ready for the week. From 11:15 to 11:45, you can take a quick break and then from 11:45 to 12:15, map out your Instagram post for the day, interact with others online, respond to comments, etc. Then from 12:15 to 1:15 you can do your homework for that one hour, then if you need more time, do another 15-20 minute break, get a snack, go on your phone, and then back to work.

This is not only efficient for you, but you will notice that frequent breaks help you get your mind and brain in check so that you’re not overworking yourself and get tired easily. Having small snacks and breaks are perfect and this is proven not just for students, but for adults as well with real jobs that require you to be sitting at a desk all day or anything you’re doing. I highly recommend doing this and you’ll notice just how much work you can get done when you do it in a productive and timely manner.

Time blocking is also great because it gives you a certain amount of time to focus on that simple task and have no distractions to make sure it is thoroughly completed. We can often find it hard especially in school or our job to just sit through for hours and try to study or finish a task. When we work smarter, not harder we see results and you will shine through. You don’t need to overwork yourself to feel productive or as if you have to do a million things a day. You are right where you need to be and have everything going great. Don’t be too hard on yourself.

Getting Yourself In A Productive & Positive Mindset

The most important part of this entire post is getting yourself into a positive mindset to take on this work. If you go into your time full of work in a negative mindset, you will find the tasks dragging on and you won’t put your best effort into it. Listen to a fun podcast, watch a motivating Youtube video, or give yourself a reward in the middle of your day such as a coffee trip to Starbucks or maybe end of the week shopping trip. Having a good mindset is key to getting anything done no matter what it is.

Some tips that have worked for me include watching Youtube videos from my favorite bloggers and hearing their stories of how they hit their monthly view goals on their blog, or listening to my favorite content creators on Youtube speak about how they have been working with their favorite brand recently. Everything falls into place for everyone depending on how hard you work and how much effort you’re willing to put in. If you are an aspiring content creator, don’t look at those online in jealousy.

See them as people who have worked hard to achieve their goals. When you change your mindset, you see everything else around you in a different point of view and it makes all the difference. You can even go on Pinterest and make a moodboard or vision board of your future goals and have this around your work space. Look at it often, make it your wallpaper, envision yourself with what you truly want and don’t shoot for anything less.

You can achieve everything you want and you have the power to do so. It all starts with how you think and view everything in front of you.