5 steps to help you manage jobs, hobbies, personal growth, and social life like a pro

7 min readFeb 4, 2022

As a part-time store worker, freelance writer (for hire!), and Ph.D. student it can be hard to find time for anything else in my life. In the beginning, I actually worked from 7AM to 9PM non-stop, sacrificing family time, my hobbies, and quality time with my friends.

Fortunately, I managed to implement a few steps in my routine that allow me to juggle all of my jobs while still being able to enjoy the other (very important) aspects of my life.

Here are 5 steps to help you manage jobs, hobbies, personal growth, and social life at the same time.

1. Plan Ahead

I am addicted to planning. Seriously, I am.

There’s no one-size-fits-all tip here. Some people like physical planners and others enjoy having everything at the tip of their fingers in their computers or smartphones. I actually use both.

For the longest time, I was dedicated to my physical daily planner. I wrote everything down from having breakfast and taking a shower, to blocking time for writing and going to work. However, I recently started using Google Calendar and it changed my life.

Google Calendar is where I keep an inventory of everything that’s going on in my life for the entire week. It’s clean, simple to use, and it’s just so pleasing to see everything organized and color-coordinated. I started building next week’s plans already, here’s how it looks so far:

Calendar sheet from Google Calendar with color coordinated weekly plans.

I still use my physical planner (I love the feeling of sitting down and writing) but now I keep it in my room (instead of the office) and use it to meal prep and keep tabs on things that I have to do around the house. I usually take care of those things in the blank spaces that show up on my Google Calendar.

2. Meal Prep

Speaking of meal prepping, one of the things I’m working on, this year, is myself and my image. Being healthy and learning to love myself and my body is my personal growth project, so I’m taking some steps to improve my eating habits and save some time to work out.

Having to cook every single day with a schedule like mine can be a nightmare so I decided that, on Mondays, I would cook everything that could be cooked for the entire week. It saves me tons and tons of time! Plus, it’s really nice to come home from work, completely knackered, knowing that your (healthy) meal is ready and you just have to heat it.

Several different plates of pre-cooked meals

With the right preparation and proper storage methods, your pre-cooked meals will last you for the entire week and your last dish will be as tasty as your first.

Oh, and don’t think that I eat the same thing every single day. I pre-cook different types of meat, rice, pasta, a delicious (healthy) Mexican dish for Saturdays, and a whole lot more! Sometimes I even freeze some of the dishes for the next week, which saves me even more time!

3. Don’t waste a second

Time doesn’t wait around for anyone, so it’s easy to feel like you’ve accomplished nothing if you’re not taking advantage of those little breaks you have during the day.

I used to spend all of my breaks on the phone, looking through social media and Pinterest without realizing that I could use those moments to do something that I actually enjoy doing and that relaxes me. Now, my breaks are dedicated to my hobbies.

My main hobbies are reading and gaming (nerd alert!) and when I started working more those were the first things I sacrificed completely. However, I now know how I can incorporate those two things into my day.

Reading comes to play whenever I have to go to work in the store. Because I have some anxiety when it comes to driving/parking I got used to going to work about an hour early. Not knowing if I would be able to find a parking space would consume me. But now I use that fear to my advantage as I spend that hour before work reading!

Taking advantage of this hour of “me” time, every day, has allowed me to go through so many books last year that I’ve lost count!

Gaming is something that I now do before bed. I have dinner pretty early so I usually still have an hour to do some last-minute work, prep for the next day and that still leaves me with a solid hour, hour and a half to unwind. And that’s when I get cozy in bed and turn on my PS4.

Right now I’m playing Mass Effect 3, from the Mass Effect Legendary Edition game for PS4 (the one with all the amazing DLCs) and I’m loving it! I still go to sleep early enough to get my 7 to 8 hours of sleep but this way I’m much more relaxed and overall happy.

4. Make dedicated time for family/friends/partners

I plan every single thing in my week, so it makes sense that I also make room in my schedule for the people who matter the most to me. Spending time with my parents and friends from work is easy (I live with my parents and my store environment is laid back enough so that I can easily have fun and spend quality time with my friends from work.

The challenge is making room for the people you don’t get to see every day. In my case, that’s my childhood friends and my boyfriend. Of course, we speak every day but that doesn’t replace quality time spent together.

So, at the beginning of the week, while I’m planning, I make sure to speak with everyone and schedule a lunch, dinner, going out for drinks (way harder now during the pandemic) or simply hanging out! The moments you spend with the people you love are priceless and make you a lot more richer and fulfilled as a person, so make sure you’re not missing out on them.

Group of friends making a toast in The Simpsons.

5. Get the hard stuff out of the way first

If you take a close look at the calendar picture I shared before, you’ll notice that sometimes I prioritize writing, and others studying. This is because I like to tackle the hardest task of the day first.

Sometimes I have to write a bigger piece or come up with great pitches (not my favorite thing to do, honestly) so, on those days, I write first. Those days usually coincide with moments where I have to read some cool articles for my Ph.D. or organize some of my favorite classes.

Other days I really have to bunk down and study, write essays, and figure out grant proposals. Those are the days where I focus on university work first and then I usually just have to write an easygoing piece for my blog or Medium or take care of a small client piece.

“Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” — Mark Twain

If you’re anything like me your willpower goes down as the day goes by so, taking care of business right away solves that issue for me. Plus, this method of tackling your day will create more momentum and make you feel better as you start each day with a big win.