Using Technology to Balance Your Education and Life
Using Technology to Balance Your Education and Life
The world we live in has become increasingly complex. New choices abound for learning and, with traditional college students joined by a flood of veterans, recession-displaced workers, and others seeking answers in a slow job market, higher education still remains one of the most valuable things you can do to help secure a bright future. For those considering a return to college or even high school seniors on the fence about committing to pursuing a degree, one thing to consider is how you are going to balance that commitment with everything else you need to do in your life.
Weighing Your Commitments
Like many of you, I completed all of my graduate school education after I was married and working full-time. Sometimes this meant putting in well over 40 hours a week in retail management, while easily surpassing that number in class time, studying, and collaborative work with classmates. While I did not have the option of doing much of my coursework online, I did take a couple of classes via the Internet (and taught some as well) and can say that the flexibility that they offered is one significant way that technology can help those trying to juggle multiple commitments and their education. This post provides several additional ways in which technology can help you balance heavy commitments to work, family, and other activities, with the stress of completing a degree.
Like many of you, I completed all of my graduate school education after I was married and working full-time. Sometimes this meant putting in well over 40 hours a week in retail management, while easily surpassing that number in class time, studying, and collaborative work with classmates. While I did not have the option of doing much of my coursework online, I did take a couple of classes via the Internet (and taught some as well) and can say that the flexibility that they offered is one significant way that technology can help those trying to juggle multiple commitments and their education. This post provides several additional ways in which technology can help you balance heavy commitments to work, family, and other activities, with the stress of completing a degree.
The first step in solving any problem is understanding it and gathering enough information to make an informed attempt at a solution. When talking about trying to balance the major commitments in life such as work, family, hobbies, and education, the dispassionate disposition of technology can actually be a great help in taking a more objective look at the factors involved. As the saying goes, the numbers don’t lie.
For starters, you are going to want to create a master schedule of your current life to determine where your education can fit in with your current responsibilities. There are several time tracking options available to let you get a picture of your life. If you are already using something like Google Calendar, you may have much of the data you already need. Simply start using the calendar to keep track of all your daily commitments in one place for at least a week, though a month will give you a better picture. Track every minute of your day starting when you wake up, shower, eat breakfast, how long your drive to work is, the hours that you work, free time during your work day, driving home, cooking dinner, playing with the kids, and of course, any free time you have during all of that. The color coding feature of Google Calendar will allow you to see how your days, weeks, and months are divided up.
For those who want even more data (think charts and graphs), taking advantage of a free trial of a program like OfficeTime or Clockodo can allow minute time tracking and provide you with data presented in tables and graphs that may help you better visualize and quantify your priorities.
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