How to balance studies, work and family demands? For years, people have been trying to achieve this challenging goal. My best friend had to drop university after one year because she was very unhappy not to fully be part of her children’s life due to her demanding job and almost lost her husband. I know many people in the same situation who had to make a choice and most of the time the family came first. After my first year at Penn Foster College trying to obtain my bachelor degree in Business Management, I’ve discovered that making personal sacrifices, really manage my time and being dedicated are the key to succeed in life.
In my opinion, striking a balance between work, studies and family demands is a long and ongoing-process where self and time management play a very important role. My work is demanding: A typical workday for me starts at 6:30 am and ends at 8:30 pm which often extends to midnight depending on the urgency or last minutes events. I can assure you that it hasn’t been easy. However, my experience has showed that making decisions wisely, allocating responsibility can make life easy. The most difficult part of this process is to participate actively in my family’s life. My children need me a great deal because of the trauma they experienced and still live after the earthquake in Haiti, my country. The five hours distance between USA and Africa makes it tough. Overall, I believe that I’ve succeeded thanks to proper management of time and the advances in technology. By developing a personal plan, set up priorities, identifying both short term and long term goals, staying focused have enable me to achieve this balance. For work, I use a daily planner that helps me organize my daily life from friend’s birthday to work appointments and assignments. A “to do list” with major tasks is very useful for work. It helps me focus on the most important items, avoid repetition of labour, tracks my progress and makes it easy to carry over tasks....