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I recently participated in the Graduate Student Ambassador panel at Columbia’s New Graduate Student Orientation, and many students had questions about how to get involved and also about how to manage their time with regards to being involved and being social while still keeping up on their schoolwork and maintaining a job. That’s a whole lot of time management right there, and while I think that after a few years of doing this I’ve got it down, I probably don’t. Each semester is trial and error. Take on a little here and there, and when you’ve taken on too much, you have to give a little back.

This semester, I will be teaching two sections of Writing & Rhetoric II, working part-time for both the Office of Academic Affairs and the office of Graduate Admissions & Services, taking two graduate courses, working with my advisor during Thesis hours, and continuing on as an assistant editor for Hotel Amerika.  I handed off my curating duties for the 33 Reading Series to fellow Nonfiction MFA candidate Maddison Hamil and Poetry MFA candidate Jacob Victorine. I’ll miss working with the series but will attend the events as an audience member, and I know that the series is in extremely creative and capable hands! Throw all of those time commitments into a bucket and mix it around with reading 11 books (which is nothing compared to what you will read in your first and second years) and actually putting my manuscript together and generating new work, reading, grading, and weekly class prep, and I become one busy person.  I know that their are several of my colleagues who have even more time commitments and have families, so we are all a pretty busy bunch.

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So how do I manage to squeeze in a social life? A lot of the social events I go to are writing related, like the Dollhouse Reading Series, the 33 Reading Series, and various literary events around the city. Last weekend, I attended a fundraising karaoke event at Beauty Bar for Switchback Books. My classmate Colleen O’Connor was participating on behalf of Switchback Books. In a few weeks, I will be attending a book release event for Nonfiction faculty member Adam McOmber, for his new book, The White Forest. I also spend a good amount of time with my classmates while going out for dinner, having BBQs, and going to local bars. Through these activities, we get a chance to unwind together and talk about our creative work outside of the classroom and about what’s going on in the classes we teach. I really enjoy this collision of professional and social atmosphere, and I think that the stronger the bond that you can create with your peers, the more support you will have during your time at Columbia.

During the panel at Orientation, Dance Movement Therapy & Counseling MA Ambassador, Chelsea Batko, also said that it’s important to have some form of “self-care” that you make time for. For me, that’s having interests outside of writing and the literary world. When I’m stressed, I like to scrapbook, go to thrift stores, take long walks, and watch movies. My self-care ritual is to remove myself from my professional world completely. Making time for yourself outside of your professional world is just as important as creating a social atmosphere outside of your professional world. You need both.

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And then how do I keep track of it all? Two words: Google Calendar. I’m obsessed with my Google Calendar and all of the different colored tabs (personal schedule, Graduate Ambassador Schedule, Teaching Schedule, etc.) This feature of Gmail is by far my favorite and really does let me visualize all of my time commitments. I also love a list (in writing and in time-management). There’s something very fulfilling about placing a check mark next to a completed task or scratching a line through a task. Again, it’s about visualizing my productivity, which I find motivates me to keep being productive. I also enjoy a good cup of coffee when I start to tire mid-day and a nice glass of wine to unwind at night. It’s the little things, really, that keep me focused and happy.