In your chaotic world full of responsibilities and demands, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and exhausted.  Juggling your presentation at work, a final exam at school, and still feeling connected to your family is a tiresome balancing act.  Yet, at the same time, this quandary provides the opportunity for great success.  Demonstrating quality time management and life balancing skills affords you the opportunity to become a role model for your family’s future successes.  Follow these steps throughout your personal, professional, and academic journeys and you will discover the keys to a happy, balanced, and successful life.

1. Share your dreams with your family; in return they share in your success.

2. Describe the ways in which returning to school affects each member of the family, and share your hope that reaching your goals will ultimately benefit all.

3. Place a high value on personal needs.

4. Create an efficient environment in your home where all work and study materials are kept and where you can shift-gears and work resourcefully.

5. Ask for uninterrupted quiet time, but remember to reciprocate with your time later.

6. Prioritize your responsibilities and define for each of you what requirements you have in order to complete them.

7. Learn to delegate age-appropriate tasks to your children and discuss household responsibilities with your spouse.

8. Create a schedule and stick to it.

9. Consider keeping a large family calendar where every member posts his/her schedule.

10. Remember to be flexible and realistic.

Amanda

This is the first in a series of articles on networking opportunities for NIU off-campus students.

For those of you still unfamiliar with Facebook (http://www.facebook.com), this social networking website is set up for you to get to know people in your classes and at your school. Using your NIU e-mail address, you can become part of the NIU Facebook network.   Facebook is structured as a series of networks. These networks can be people in your highschool, university, company, or region. You can join multiple networks at the same time. Your basic profile on Facebook includes name, contact information, and interests. For all of this content, you can choose what is visible publicly, meaning by your network(s) or by friends only. There are a number of reasons why it is important to manage what is visible on your profile carefully. (more…)