by Brandy Myers

Created on: April 25, 2009

Two Words...Time Management. Alright, I am a single mom, a full time employee and a full time college student. How do I manage? I study from home. There are many great universities and colleges out there waiting for us parents to notice them. It is the easiest thing in the world to manage children and college once you are taught how. If you are lucky like I was, I had three great beginner courses that gave me the time management tools necessary to balance a busy life. So put away the rope...and the duct tape, you wont need it.

First things first, pull out a piece of paper (not your hair) and write all that you need to do today. Like most people you pretty much wrote it in the order you planned on doing it. Great! now group them into time frames morning, afternoon, and evening. Second, rate the importance of each thing you need to do in each daytime section. Wow, pretty easy, you are on your way. Third, how much time will it take to do each thing, and can you delegate the task to someone else. Look you have extra time on your hands. Now note where that extra time is and what your children are doing. Do they require you to take care of their needs at the moment, is there something they could be doing? Great set them to it and pull out your book, set a timer for 15 minutes and read your textbook or answer a few question from your assignments.

The idea is to build a routine. This routine should maximize the importance of tasks that are important or not; and that can be delegated to others, this lightens your load. The best times to study are when your children studying. They follow by example and strive with routines. It is hard to admit at first that we need to balance our time thus stabilizing our children. Once there is a habit formed for the family, the easier it will be. A habit usually takes about a month to form and will be a beacon on the horizon the rest of your college journey.

We often overwhelm ourselves with things to do, and as a mom I am more prone to this. I learned a valuable tool by prioritizing my tasks. This allowed the tasks to get get done fast and proper. This frees up a great amount of time, it keeps everyone in order, and makes life go much smoother.

I remember when I had to write my first school paper, I was overwhelmed, though I stuck with my routine and found that I had time for everything. I even organized the time for my paper breaking it down into sections. There are many great resources that are free that teach people how to manage themselves. Do not let the fear that you have children prevent you from reaching your dreams. The sky is limitless.

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