Time management advice

StudentOfHealing · Oct 20, 2014

Break up/divorce with your bf/gf/spouse

Say goodbye to your fiends.

Place kids for adoption.

Place pets for adoption.

Have 2 for 1 deals (e.g get 1 puppy free when

you buy one 1 kid)

Live in a room. 4 walls. Stocked with a fridge, microwave, bed, and desk. Ikea has some nice stuff.

Smash your phone

Activate parental controls to block FB and social media. Then flush the password down the toilet along with your promise/engagement/marriage ring.

Questions?

SopranoKris, MSN, RN, NP · Oct 20, 2014

I would suggest getting a planner. I usually fill in dates of all my tests and highlight them in the same color. Then I fill in any quizzes and highlight in a different color. Then any papers that must be written (again, using another color). Finally, any additional homework assignments in another color. In the spaces in between, I schedule my study time (no color needed). This makes it easy for me to see at a glance what is coming up and what I need to prepare for when I'm studying. I can also see how many days lead time I have for assignments that are due.

You can also write in your family's schedule, so you don't miss anything. I put my son's sporting events, music concerts, etc. in my calendar so it's all in one spot. I try to follow a routine so it's easy to remember. For example, I vacuum & dust on Mondays, laundry on Tuesdays, grocery store on Wednesdays, nothing on Thursday (clinicals) and mop the floors on Fridays.

If you need help getting started on organization, I highly recommend joining FlyLady.net. It's free and it's so helpful! Her motto is you break everything up in to 15 minute chunks. It really DOES help!!! My house is never messy, I've always got dinner on the table at night and I stay on top of my homework. Give it a try :)

NurseGirl525, ASN, RN · Oct 20, 2014

I also have a planner. I have several actually. I plan my weeks out on Sunday. When my son goes with my ex, what nights he has judo practice, when we get his homework done. Then I put in my classes and plan out my study time. In class I write down when assignments are due as they come up during the week. I take it one day at a time. I don't start on a new assignment until the others that are due first are completely done. My days off from school, I break up my day into cleaning, studying and my boyfriend. He's very understanding of me in nursing school and supports me completely but I make sure I make time for him also. We just spend the whole afternoon together today. Tonight I worked around the house and homework along with getting my son's stuff ready for school in the morning. Plus I am having a huge water problem in my basement and I spent over 3 hours sucking up water today.

Tomorrow I will get up at 5:30 continue sucking up water, finish up quizzes for school, send my son to school, call a plumber and get him here, study for my test, put laundry away, pick up my son from the bus, help him with homework, go to judo practice, get some dinner, then my boyfriend will come over about 9 and we will spend the night together. But not all night because I have class for 11 hours on Tuesday.

It's not hard, it just takes a lot of planning.

SopranoKris, MSN, RN, NP · Oct 20, 2014

Forgot to add that I plan everything during the week so it leaves my weekends open for family time. I will use it for school if I have an exam or paper due. Otherwise, Sat & Sun are family days. Helps keep your sanity :)

akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P · Oct 20, 2014

I also had to work, raise a kid, and go to school. How did I do it? Like the others, I used a planner. Mine happens to be Google's Calendar and I have it on my phone as well. Anything I needed to do went on that planner, and I only used ONE planner so that there was no way that I could schedule myself to be at two places at the same time. That strategy worked out really, really well and I still use it today out of habit. I have found that as long as you consistently use the same planner for all activities that you need to do or be present for, you'll be well ahead of things down the road.

One thing that did also keep me on task was my program also published word document calendars for us so as things changed, I could make an immediate change on my "master" school calendar and then when I had more time, I could update the google calendar as well to reflect that change. Something I'd also do is print out that school calendar and post it on my wall so that I could easily see the entire semester plan all at one glance... so that I had a way to "see" the forest, not just the trees.

The Google Calendar was my day-to-day resource though.

RunBabyRN · Oct 20, 2014

Yes to the planner! I had a spiral one I bought at the bookstore, and I wrote everything in PENCIL, because, of course, professors LOVE to change assignments up on you, and life happens.

Social life will be little or nothing, and your friends need to be okay with that. It's the way it goes.

What are you doing for yourself to maintain your sanity? For me, it was running (still is now that I've graduated). Find something you can do that keeps you sane.

By learning your school stuff, you're already "studying" for the NCLEX. Don't try to tackle anything more than that now. Pay attention, learn how the questions are asked (understand what "more right" means), and worry about the NCLEX as you approach graduation and beyond. I started studying probably March (a little) before I graduated in May, and took the exam in June, passed with 75 questions. Once all of my schoolwork was done, I took a little mental break, but then studying became my full time job. Even then, little of the content I'd reviewed was even on it. It was more about understanding delegation and leadership and such than about understanding specific meds and lab values. Learning the strategies for the exam was what helped me most, and had I done them in my first semester, they wouldn't have helped me even a tiny bit come NCLEX time. Take one thing at a time.

I carried a book with me EVERYWHERE, and read EVERYWHERE. If I might be standing in line somewhere, my book was with me. My ATI books were downloaded onto my phone, so I could break that out very easily as needed.

kbrn2002, ADN, RN · Oct 20, 2014

Break up/divorce with your bf/gf/spouse
Say goodbye to your fiends.
Place kids for adoption.
Place pets for adoption.
Have 2 for 1 deals (e.g get 1 puppy free when
you buy one 1 kid)
Live in a room. 4 walls. Stocked with a fridge, microwave, bed, and desk. Ikea has some nice stuff.
Smash your phone
Activate parental controls to block FB and social media. Then flush the password down the toilet along with your promise/engagement/marriage ring.
Questions?

Not sure if you need to be quite that drastic, lol! Seriously though, there is a small grain of truth in there. Juggling school, work and life is difficult at best. Knowing that school is a commitment with an end in site, the most practical thing to let go a bit is the social life. Be very selective with your social calendar. You do need to have a bit of a social life to preserve your sanity, but you don't need to go clubbing every weekend.

3peas · Oct 20, 2014

As far as studying for NCLEX-do questions that correspond to your content areas for your exams. That's it. Hit NCLEX heavy at the end of your program. There are plenty of apps, books, programs, whatever you want just find it. Your social life will dwindle-harsh truth. It won't be non-existent, but close. You HAVE to schedule everything like people have said, if that is new to you it just takes time to make it a habit. I tried doing it on my phone, but in the end I had to buy a planner and write it down.