I’ve made a new baking blog on instagram where I post my homemade goods – both sweet and savoury. Follow me @torontobaking to see the food I make!

I’m often asked how I manage to balance everything going on in my life. For context, I currently work 3 jobs, run 2 clubs (a non-profit with 1200 members  as well as my University’s club for Canadian Blood Services), am enrolled in 4 courses and conducting an honours thesis project. I still spend time with my family and friends, I go to the gym 3X a week (the winter snacks are hitting hard), I run a baking blog on instagram, I read for fun, and I run this blog here. How do I make time for all of this? Time budgets.

I didn’t always manage my schedule well. In fact, until my 3rd year of university I didn’t manage my time well at all. The transition from high school to university was tough. From teachers giving daily updates to professors expecting you to manage your own calendar was rough- but it taught me to learn how to schedule my own life. Let me explain what I mean by time budgeting. Every activity or event I have, I set myself a certain amount of time to complete it, after which I must move on to my next activity. The activities that I know will take me more time I budget more time than I expect, and budget less time for smaller tasks (ex. sending an email or posting a blog update). My calendar is my best friend, and I use it for almost everything I do. This way my mind can focus on the activity at hand rather than at trying to remember everything I have to do.

Time budgeting allows you to integrate more in to your life, while lowering your procrastination. Try it out for yourself and see the difference!