Justina Lee: Balancing Act

Moving to a new country, into a new home, and settling into a new job sounds crazy, but in reality it isn't all that bad. The real challenge is learning how to balance work, school, and a social life altogether (and more often than not, the social life takes the biggest hit). For example, this week has been a 40 hour work week, which left little time on the side to do much else. And while school assignments have been easy, they require time to complete, a precious commodity we do not have much of. 

As of late, I have also set a personal goal to enter a rock climbing competition (woo hoo!). But that adds another level of responsibility to my list, including making time to work out and creating a healthy and clean diet plan. Thankfully I get two days off each week...that is if I don't spend one whole afternoon at Walmart buying groceries.  With all those mashed up together, it may seem impossible to have your cake and eat it too, but with a little creativity, time management, and pixie dust, it's all possible. 

And when I finally have free time, the magic really happens!
 
Here is what I've learned to do through this experience working at the Walt Disney World Company.
 

• Time Management
• Anything that is due or urgent, keep it on high priority and allot time over the week to get it done. If it is a bigger assignment, get started earlier so you don't have to stress out about it later
• Anything that is medium priority, make sure you dedicate an afternoon to finish
• Low priorities can be done last, and usually can go after social events 
• Don't procrastinate
• If you need to get something done, sit down, make yourself a cup of tea, turn off your music and other distractions, and just get it done
• Every hour, go and take a 10 minute break, be it jumping jacks or watching a quick YouTube video; but once the 10 minutes is over, get back to the work and keep pushing until your done or until another hour has passed
• The key to overcoming procrastination for myself is to set a reward. If I finish...then I get to...
• Social Life
• Having a social life for extroverts like me is a necessity; although I need my solitary time as well, nothing beats a night out with good company. (Since I am not an introvert, I am unable to give suitable advice)
• Make sure that you see your friends outside of work at least once a week. If you have a whole day to spare, then try to spend a day with them. You'll be surprised at how much fun it is and how rejuvenating it is, especially with the right friends
• If you don't have much time to spare or only want to see your friends for a few hours, then invite them over for tea or go to the pool together for a few hours!
• I personally like to light two flames with one candle, so if I can, I would go grocery shopping with a friend or two because you can get something productive done while being with friends
• Work
• Unless you work at home, most of us follow schedules, so here I would just suggest arriving to work on time and making the most out of work
• Working here at Disney, we really don't have the best pay in the world (and that's an understatement,) so attitude is everything. While at work, its in your best interest to keep everything light-hearted yet uphold a strong positive attitude. Of course it's impossible to do this every day but if you can do that at work, and maintain a habit of doing so, then you'll realize how much happier you are when you're outside of wor