Finding the right balance between studies and social life is not an easy task – ask anybody who went through this while at college, and even those who have managed to pull it off will tell you that it required a lot of effort and determination. Many people sacrifice one for the sake of the other or fail halfway through, letting either studies or relationships gradually move into the background (for example, buying cheap essays to deal with college assignments). However, maintaining this balance is possible – and in this article, we will cover some useful tips for doing so.
1. Decide if it is serious
Or, in other words, is the relationship we are talking about going to grow into a more serious commitment or you are just fooling around? If it is latter, ask yourself if it is worth the trouble. If you don’t intend to go any further with this relationship anyway, perhaps it is better to let it go right now and not allow it to eat up precious time and energy when you need them for other purposes? It may sound a bit cynical, but in fact, it is just realistic. People tend to go through a number of relationships in the course of their lives, and many of them leave little to no impact on them in the long run. Is having such a relationship at such a stressful period of your life a good idea, when you have more important things to do?
2. Communicate your needs
One of the most common reasons student relationships don’t work out in the end is that one of the partners feels that he or she isn’t getting enough attention. It is hardly surprising – if you want to be successful in college, you have to put a lot of time and effort into it, to say nothing of part-time jobs and other responsibilities. However, this problem can be alleviated or averted if both of you are open to each other about your situations. When are you particularly busy and have to get as deep as possible into your work? When can you allow yourself more time with your partner? What is your schedule like? What responsibilities do you have? If both of you make it all absolutely clear for each other and both of you are reasonable people, you will be able to understand that lack of time together comes not from unwillingness to give attention but for objective reasons.
3. Learn to manage your time
Having to divide your attention between the relationship and the studies by definition calls for the efficient use of every minute, and you should obtain the necessary skills for that. Establish your own personal timetable where you will note down what and when you do, how much time you have to dedicate to studies every week to stay ahead of the game when you can spend time together and so on. If, for example, you have to learn how to write an argumentative essay, use the best resources to study from and don’t waste your time.
Bring your partner into the arrangement so that your actions don’t seem arbitrary but dictated by necessity and reasonable planning. This also means taking responsibility for your time – that is, making sure you spend every minute to its maximum potential. Every time you surf the Internet or spend an hour on social media, you should ask yourself – wouldn’t it have been better spent either studying or having some quality time with your partner?
4. Employ self-discipline
All this talk about schedules and maintaining balance is good, but it is only viable if you actually stick to what you’ve decided. Spending time with your partner may be more pleasant than revising for an exam, but you should learn to delay gratification and avoid being impulsive. Forgoing studies for the sake of a date may be OK once, but doing so you risk turning it into a habit, and nothing good will come from that. Thus, the only way to balance two as time-consuming things as studying and being in a relationship is to make a plan and stick to it.
5. Give each other breathing room during and before exams
Exams are unpleasant enough in and of themselves, and solving relationship problems at the same time (or explaining for the umpteenth time that you can’t afford to lose a single minute right now) won’t help your relationship one bit. So when the time for exams comes, make it abundantly clear that you are going to spend most of your time studying, and seeing each other will have either to wait or be very limited. Turn this decision into an additional reason to look forward to the exams’ end.
6. Make sure the time you spend together is quality time
Don’t spend time together for the sake of doing so. Plan to do things that will be interesting and fascinating for both of you and get the most out of every minute together. Work hard and rest accordingly – when you spend time with your partner you shouldn’t feel guilty for not preparing for an exam or writing that particularly nasty research paper. You should be fully and completely in the current moment.
Balancing relationships and studies in college is, of course, tremendously difficult – after all, it is the first time you have as many responsibilities and as much freedom, and dealing with it all may feel overwhelming. However, we are sure that with these tips and a bit of common sense, you can overcome any obstacle. All you need is a little bit of determination.