Best practices for managing your time and stress associated with balancing graduate school and other life responsibilities. In graduate schools, many students find very difficult to balance their work and time particularly because of the responsibilities that clash with their education. As such, many students become stressed out there is too little time and so much to attend to (Linden, 2007). To avoid such stressful scenarios, it is imperative for the students to get their priorities straight. This implies that the students should be ready and able to know what matters most in their lives. Having a checklist of the things to do, starting with the one on the highest priority should be the starting point. Besides, students ought to learn to be assertive and how to say no. Apparently, students use up so much time attending to activities that are not very important to them and to their studies (Linden, 2007). Despite the influence of peers, the students should be able to cut down the activities that use up to much of their time.
It is important for students to ‘be present’. By this I mean that students ought to focus on each thing at a time. For instance, if a student wishes to visit friend or relatives, they should try to forget about school and be with their friends or relatives. The reverse is also true. Besides, (Linden 2007) articulates that students should find time for themselves to recharge. It is clear that majority of students will find graduate school very demanding (Linden, 2007). To some extents, it might result to stressful days and nights. Students ought to try their best to find their time and engage in such activities as evening walks, attend health gyms or even relax by participating in sporting activities.