Starting your career in a nursing school is quite challenging. And we all know all the challenges that go along with managing the balance between enjoying your life, handling the tight work schedule, and the nursing classes. When you are trying your best to maintain a healthy relationship between your home and work commitments on top of your nursing studies, the amount of time you’ll get to study could seem impossible.
So how are you going to manage it? Well, here is a fellow nurse’s concern about her plans! Feels a connection?
For those who are working and going to your nursing school … Here are some helpful tips to get you organized in your tight calendar.
- Get Organized
The first step you have to take here to get a hold of studying-work-life is to get organized. Finding a suitable environment to study can be challenging if you’re away from home staying in a dorm with friends. Set up a table and use it to house your books, computer, and other study materials you think is required for your studies. Knowing the fact that you have set a dedicated place just for your ADN, LSN, MSN, or RN – BSN nursing classes will improve your mindset.
And during your semester, take some time to organize your school calendar with the upcoming important dates. Taking this step will help you stay on top of your school duties. Creating a schedule and dedicated time for studying will improve your mood for studying, later it will become your routine. Do avoid all distractive items from your study table.
If it’s too hard to focus on studying do this – set a goal, this may be studying a full chapter or 5 pages or something. And set a reward, nobody said that you can’t reward yourself for achieving a goal, so, set a goal and time, and if you completed this goal successfully without any distraction, you can reward yourself. It might be spending some time with your pet, listening to your favorite song or having a cup of hot chocolate coffee.
- Flexible Time Management
One of the things you will need in this situation is flexibility. If you have a job, you’ll have to sit with your boss and let her know about your plans of going to a nursing school. Depending on the class and working hours, you might need to reshape your working hours to support your time. Discuss with your supervisor how they can help you out here because you don’t want to mix things up. And in some places, you might require your supervisor’s approval to study before you enroll, and some employers might offer tuition payment.
Maybe discussing with your boss may help you to get a hike in your job or salary if they’re looking for a person with the degree. Depending on your work schedule, you could easily select a time slot for your online nursing education. And you could schedule your daily work-life-study time.
- Take Notes
Taking notes in class time will help you remember later. During each class, professors may give you extracurricular information which you may need in your life later, or they may mention the topics that will be covered on the test – so, listen carefully. Taking notes will help you to remember when you revise that section after some time. Your professor may explain something in detail which you remember at that time, or he may mention anything more which is not in the syllabus. So, it will always be a good start to take notes in your class.
Or having a bad day to take notes? Feeling too exhausted or tired? You can always record the lecture and then listen to the clip at another time.
- Study Everyday
Studying every day is like listening to a song. When you listen to the same song for a few days your mind will unconsciously remember the lyrics, and you’ll find yourself memorizing the lyrics by heart. So, set at least half an hour to study each day and stick to the rule. If you stick to a rule for more than 40 days it will become a habit. You have to realize that you can’t review a week’s or month’s study in a few hours on the weekend.
Getting behind in your course can be a disaster, especially in nursing classes, the lessons can immediately become very hard to get if you don’t follow up properly. To avoid a situation like this, commit to spending as much time on your studies every day, or you can break the time frame into several smaller time blocks. You don’t have to study everything in a sit. You can divide the sections by each part and study. But one of the rules is here to remember that never leave anything for tomorrow. If you skip your study time thinking it feels like you’re too lazy tired to study anything today, you’ll make this a daily excuse.
- Follow your Learning style
Not everyone is the same. That being said even if one person’s learning aspect is different from another: some may need to read something to understand the concept, and some may need to read or see it, while others learn kinetically. Everyone needs to find out their style of learning. You’ll most probably find out your learning style by now if not, it’s not too late yet. Find out your learning style and use it as an advantage in your study time.
As a person myself, I get ideas quickly if someone demonstrates the idea in a book rather than listening to it. It doesn’t matter what it is, it might be an essay, a hard maths problem or a complex diagram. Once I know how this works, the information will store like a picture in my mind.
- Group Study is Everything
Form a small study group! In a study group, there will be various discussions about a class or concept. And everyone may have their own opinions about the concept, it’s maybe how they understand that topic is or how they researched more about the topic, and in the end, you’ll get multiple perspectives of what is what, and getting different views on a topic can help you learn it more thoroughly.
Another benefit of the study group is that you can get the study notes and materials, and as well as clear your doubts. Being inside a study group will make you want to study more especially if there’s a person relying on you, you will get more serious about the work to be done.
- Extra-Curricular Resources
Improve your knowledge with reliable extracurricular resources. For example, if you want to learn something about lungs or lung related illness, you can go for sites like Mayo Clinic, WebMD, or any other trusted resources to learn more about it. Reading patient’s success stories is good; here, you can have a better understanding of their symptoms and the steps they have taken to beat their illness and all.
Learning from reliable extracurricular resources will improve your knowledge in a specific area. This will improve your in-depth knowledge about a term. This extra knowledge will help you sometime in your future.
- Avoid Stress and Get Enough Sleep
The amount of sleep you get affects your health and your daily performance especially when you’re balancing your life between career, college, and family. Not getting enough sleep will result in tiredness, and all the hard work you have put towards studying will be nothing. Put your “sleep” in your priority list, and the final results will be relieving.
You may get often stressed out because of your tight schedule. You may be stressed about thinking about your education expenses, we have various RN-BSN Nursing Scholarships to help you out here. And some colleges may offer a discount for online nursing education programs. Or you may be stressed about not getting enough free time to rest. It would be better if you could plan your every week’s program and stay with the schedule. Limit any unwanted sudden plans to your change and stick with the schedule.
Author Bio
I am keerthana Krishna passionate about all the internet stuff such as affiliate marketing, blogging, and, most importantly, I like to do all the SEO strategies. If you are inside digital marketing, let’s connect for future opportunities.
LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/keerthana-krishna-6a3303189
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