Juggling Act

The podcast discusses the challenges and rewards of balancing parenting, work, and college. The host emphasizes the importance of time management, including creating schedules and meal prepping. Asking for help and using online tools are also key strategies. Spending quality time with family and practicing self-care are highlighted as crucial. The host concludes by encouraging listeners to remember that they are not alone and that there are resources available to help them succeed. Good evening, and welcome to my podcast, Balancing Act, Juggling Parenting, Work, and College. I'm your host, Chelsea Perez Villarreal, and today I'll be taking a dive into the challenging yet rewarding world of managing these three critical aspects of life, whether you're a married parent, single parent, a student, a professional, or a mixture of any of these, this is an episode you do not want to miss. First of all, let's dive into the challenges we all face when trying to juggle parenting, work, and being a full-time college student. It is truly a real-life balancing act, if I don't say so myself, but do not worry. I've gathered some helpful tips and insights based on my own personal experiences that will surely help you navigate this journey strongly. The art of time management. Time management is most definitely the foundation of this balancing act. It is so important to create a schedule that accommodates your tasks, so it's best to plan your days ahead of time, set aside specific time frames for work, for studying, and for spending time with your family. I had to learn this, unfortunately, the hard way, and I was not always so good at managing my time, but planning definitely helps out so, so much. I have a valuable tip that I'd like to share with you, and that tip is meal prepping. You get out of work and you have things to do, house chores, and taking your kids to practice and things like that, and so sometimes it's hard for us to have time to cook meals, so if you meal prep and you use a crock pot, you can save a good amount of time, and that crock pot will become your best friend, and so you can come home to a cooked meal for your entire family, and of course that's going to save you a lot of time. Another helpful tip for managing your time is to use a planner, a calendar, and setting aside specific times for your work, for studying, for spending time with your family, just creating those schedules to accommodate all of your tasks because we all know that the tasks are never ending. And so moving on to the next segment, and that would be asking for help. Having a support system, y'all, is very, very crucial. Don't be afraid to ask for help from your family, your friends, and if you're married, make sure you ask your spouse for help. There's absolutely nothing wrong in doing so. You shouldn't hesitate. And then of course, planning and communicating with those people that you're asking to be your support system is definitely key because it's not always going to be helpful to ask them spur of the moment to help out, so it's important to plan when you're going to need help. Plan on asking them ahead of time. The next thing that I would like to point out is the use of online tools. So if you're a working parent who happens to work either part-time or full-time, I myself work full-time, and I am a full-time college student seeking a bachelor's degree, then the use of online tools are best. Going to school online can be your best friend. Taking online classes, using e-books definitely makes your studying time more flexible, and it just makes things so much easier because a lot of online schools, like the one that I currently attend, allows you to be able to work at your own pace, and it just makes that whole juggling process a breeze. And having to juggle all those different things is always going to be sort of chaotic, but all these tips are going to help. And so the next thing that I want to talk about would be spending quality time with family. One of the most important outlooks is making sure that you're spending quality time with your loved ones. You know, your work is always going to be there, you'll eventually finish with your schooling, but your children will not stay small forever, and, you know, time is always ticking, and our kids grow really fast, and we don't want to miss all those important milestones. So your children will definitely appreciate the precious time that you spend with them. They'll appreciate it now, and they'll definitely appreciate it later on. And so, again, going back to managing your time, that's something that you definitely need to add into your planning, into your scheduling, making sure that quality time with your family is, you know, put into those schedules. Set aside time for, you know, playing outside with them, reading books, doing their homework with them, making sure that you make time to attend any of their events or activities. That's something that is very important to your kids, and, you know, it should be important to you as well. I know that that's something that I never miss. I never miss any of my kids' events, even though, you know, I might have a big paper due or a discussion due, I make sure and work around, you know, all those things. And so the next point that I want to talk about would be self-care. A lot of people might describe self-care as being selfish or self-centered, and I don't believe that. I believe that parents, especially working parents and, you know, single parents and, you know, married parents as well, but parents work hard, and so it's important for them to take care of themselves. It's very crucial to set aside time for that. So again, going back to the planning and marking that into your calendars, taking time for yourself to go relax, plan dinners with your friends, with your family, plan date nights. You know, it doesn't have to be every weekend, once a month, once every two months, something like that. You know, a trip to the spa, all these little things help maintain a healthy relationship with yourself, and it's important because those can help us be able to manage the stressors that we have in our lives. If you're anything like me, then juggling all of these things can really take a toll and become very stressful. So that's why I think, you know, the self-care is definitely critical. In closing, this podcast of balancing parenting, balancing, you know, work and college, it's so challenging, but it is so very rewarding and so worth it. It's having good time management, having a support system, using online tools, using online schooling and online books, taking care of yourself. You can succeed in each and every one of those areas. You always need to remember that you're not alone in this journey, and there are endless, endless resources out there to help you be the best that you can be. I want to thank you all so much for joining me tonight and for listening to these helpful tips that, you know, I have been speaking about, and these are based on my own life experiences, and I hope that you can take them and use them and even pass them on to others. And I would love to hear feedback from any of you, maybe to add to this and to create, you know, another podcast about the life struggles that we go through as, you know, working parents and students. It's all, you know, a juggling act. It's like a real life circus sometimes, but it's definitely worth it in the end whenever you have these kinds of tools that you can use towards becoming successful. So once again, thank you for joining me and listening to my podcast.