Finding enough time to work on your studies while also holding down a much-needed job can be tricky for even the most motivated of us to handle. If the balance tips even a little too far in one direction, then you can end up in trouble with work that is substandard or studies that suffer.

The good news is there, are lots of things you can do to juggle work and study more effectively going forward, including the following:

Find a supportive employer

Look for employers who hire lots of students as they are more likely to be sympathetic to your needs to juggle work and studies, so it should be easier to arrange, more evening shifts in supportive care jobs or more weekend working in retail if you have a boss who understands the needs of students better than most.

Plan ahead

If you want to nail work and study, then it pays to plan well in advance. Create a study schedule that takes into account any exams and essay due dates, and pencil in enough time to study. You can then work out when it would be most optimum to take shifts. You might not always be able to get the exact shifts you want, but if you know when you need more time for study it will be a lot easier to negotiate work times with your employer.

Use “spare” time to study

You might think you do not have any time at all to spare, but that time spent travelling to work on the bus can be used to listen to a lecture, and the time you spend waiting for your dinner to cook can be used to read a few pages of a textbook, for example. The more of this dead time you use, the less tie you will need to find out of your schedule for studying, which means juggling work and study will be a little easier than it otherwise might.

Use study leave

Something a lot of people do not realise is that if they work for a company for 26 weeks, and the company has more than 250 employees, you might be entitled to study leave if you can prove that passing an important exam will help you do your job better, so it is worth seeing if you qualify for this during the most stressful period for your studies. This is unpaid leave, but if you can afford it, it’s a good way to get some much-needed time off to study without having to leave your job in order to do so.

Take breaks

You need to plan in periods of relaxation where you are neither working or studying if you want to avoid burnout. Try to do much and it will all fall apart very quickly.

As you can see, it is totally possible, if not easy, to juggle work and study so that you find the right balance and feel able to do both without suffering. Good luck.