4 Tips for Handling Your Schedule as a Young Professional

When you’re in college, you might think that you have a busy schedule and you’re prepared to juggle obligations and run on limited sleep. However, once you graduate and become a young professional with a full-time job, you’ll realize that you’re incredibly busy, but it’s different from what you experienced during college. When you’re in college, you have a clear path and schedule; you take classes at specific times, you have regular meetings, you do stuff with your friends who live nearby.

As a young professional, you’re spending at least eight hours at your workplace and then have a limited amount of time for your other plans. It’s up to you to plan your own schedule. You have to coordinate with friends’ schedules, find volunteer opportunities, discover networking groups and events, and make up your mind on what should be a priority and how you want to spend your time. For college students who thrived on being involved, having so many options on top of working full-time can feel a little overwhelming. Here are some tips on how to handle your young professional schedule and make sure you’re doing what you really want to do.

Prioritize events

The first step to take for managing your new, busy schedule is to prioritize your commitments and what you want to get involved in. If there’s a cause particularly important to you, make a charity that works with it your main philanthropic focus instead of trying to get involved with a variety of organizations. If you want to spend time visiting your family above everything else, plan around those visits. Decide what your focus is and how you want to spend your time and then work around those events.

Get plenty of rest

When you’re spending hours at work, going to the gym, attending a networking event, volunteering, and hanging out with friends, you probably feel like you cannot waste a second of your day sleeping more than necessary. However, being well rested is key to being able to manage a busy schedule; you’ll feel more inclined to stick to commitments and excel at work if you’re not short on sleep.

Talk to your friends

If you’re struggling to find time to fit in all the activities in your schedule and hang out with your friends or significant other, talk to them. Find out what each others’ schedules are and consider participating in events together. Attending a networking event together can be fun and help you branch out from your comfort zone. Volunteering together is a great idea and can be something you make a regular occurrence. It’s harder to stay in touch with friends once you graduate, so make the extra effort.

Plan ahead

You’ll feel much more on top of your schedule when you make the effort to actually plan ahead. Take time at the beginning of each week to look over your schedule so you’re aware of everything that’s happening in the week ahead. You don’t want to be caught off guard by an obligation or event you forgot. Add meetings and events to your phone’s calendar so you get reminders and write them down in a physical planner. You’ll be (and feel) more organized and do not have to stress about remembering everything.

How Getting Rid of Clutter Helps You Out Financially

More and more people are realizing the benefits of decluttering and focusing on living a more  minimalist lifestyle. Minimalism doesn’t mean you have to sell all of your belongings and own two t-shirts; it’s up to you how minimal you want your lifestyle to be. However, we can all agree that spending less money on new goods and getting rid of waste in our lives have many benefits, regardless of the extent we do it. One area decluttering benefits is helping you out financially, though this benefit might not be immediately apparent. Here are a few of the financial benefits you’ll get from decluttering your life.

Gain some money

One of the most obvious benefits of decluttering is that you can likely sell a fair number of items you’re getting rid of. Have a yard sale or find sites to sell things online, such as Craigslist or Facebook groups. If you have larger items, this method is even better, since you don’t have to worry about transporting them anywhere and can simply set them outside your home or wait for someone to come pick them up.

Lower your taxes

If you’d prefer to donate the items you’re decluttering or have things left over after a yard sale, it’s easy to find places to donate gently used goods, particularly clothes. You’ll be helping out a great cause and people in need while also lowering your taxes. If you itemize your tax return, you can list everything you’ve donated and write off that money.

Spend less money

When you commit to decluttering and living with less stuff, you’ll find that you’re spending less money on needless purchases. Instead of buying items you do not actually need, you’ll be more thoughtful with the money you’re spending. You realize that you do not actually need to keep gaining more useless goods and instead you’ll save and invest your money or use it to gain experiences and better yourself.

Greater productivity

If your life is too cluttered, it can be difficult to get a lot of work done and your productivity will suffer. You’ll often be distracted by the need to organize or clean instead of just tackling a task and getting it done. You’ll waste time searching through everything for the items you need in order to find one thing. Once you declutter, you’ll also save a lot of time cleaning because you’ll have less items to move and organize.

Avoid duplicate buying

It’s likely that there have been a few times you’ve bought something without realizing you already own it. You might look around for a specific type of clothing or item and not find it anywhere, so you go out and buy something new. Then, a few days or months later, you realize that you actually have duplicates of the item you do not really need. You might even sometimes intentionally purchase a duplicate item while your old one is perfectly good. Get away from this mindset and instead only keep items you’ll actually use.

6 Ways to Create a Better Morning Routine

No matter what you’re doing, whether you’re working full-time or still in school, it’s important that you craft a great morning routine. In order to have a successful day, you need to start off well. Unfortunately, many people do not have much of a morning routine at all and try their hardest to get a few more minutes of sleep in, even if it means they’re rushing to get ready and feeling stressed out. Here are tips on how you can create a great morning routine that improves the rest of your day and pushes you down the path to success.

Get up with your alarm

The biggest mistake most people make in their morning routines is continuously hitting snooze. Though you might feel great in the moment getting ten minutes of extra sleep, it doesn’t actually help you throughout the rest of your day. That small amount of sleep does not make a difference in your energy and can actually make you feel sluggish since you’re disturbing your sleep. You’ll find you have more time in the mornings if you get up with your first alarm.

Make your bed

Right now, you might not have time to complete this step, but if you stop hitting snooze, you will. It only takes a few minutes and making your bed ensures that you don’t get back into it to take a nap later in the day or waste time while you’re getting ready. It also makes your mind feel at peace because everything in your room looks more organized with your bed made and makes moving forward with your day easier.

Eat healthy

Most people have the best intentions when it comes to healthy eating, but find it’s much harder to put into practice once you’re competing with your busy schedule. While you should be eating healthy your entire day, the meal you eat in the morning is vitally important. Make yourself a protein rich breakfast and take time to slowly eat it; do not eat something full of sugar that leaves you feeling hungry and tired a few hours later.

Do some activity

Some people find it’s incredibly effective to work out in the morning, though this routine isn’t for everyone. You might not want to hit the gym, but do a few exercises in your room right after you get up. Take time to stretch, do some pushups, or something else and you’ll find you’re more alert and ready to face the day.

Go over your day

Staying organized is important to your daily routine so start the day by going over what you need to accomplish in the next 24 hours. Just quickly reading through a planner or making a short to-do list helps you focus and get ready for the day ahead. You’ll stay focused and avoid forgetting important meetings or tasks.

Avoid your phone

A lot of people reach for their phones as soon as they wake up, but this habit can lead to you wasting time in the morning scrolling through social media. Instead, go straight to your routine and wait until after you’re fully awake before you check your emails and the weather. The less time you spendlooking at your phone, the better.