Last week, before I packed up with my family and headed up to Traverse City for five days with my family, I met up with a fellow PRSSA National Committee member, Jenna Huskinson. It was great to catch up with her and we started chatting about our other plans for the year. One thing we discussed was how little time we have to do all the things we want. Both of us have had internships, jobs, volunteer projects and extra-curricular activities that have kept our college schedules full.

We also lamented about the college paradox: maintaining balance between finding relevant experience in your field and making enough money to pay rent for the month. It’s not always easy to find both in the same place. I see a lot of internship posting that are unfortunately unpaid and that pretty much disqualifies me from applying. Am I that stuck up that I feel like I deserve money? No. Do I have a lot of bills to pay? Yes. So, like many other students, I’ve had to make it work and do both at the same time.

In my own college experience, I’ll be the first one to admit I’ve said “yes” a lot more times than I’ve said “no.” I’ve signed on to projects that I know will be time consuming yet I find that I want to help out and offer whatever I can to make the project a success. With a lot of college students I know are in these same shoes, it’s worth asking for advice:

How do you balance your passions with such realities as rent, utilities and tuition? Is there a way to combine both? How do you know when you are not passionate about your job anymore?

I’m asking because I’m looking for advice. I’m just about to start my last (well, kind of last year — I have three semesters left) year of college and I want to make sure I’m doing things that I want to do and things that will help pay the bills. But more importantly, I know these decisions won’t stop once I graduate.

So, what’s your take? How do you balance what you believe in with what pays the bills?

By the way, I learned on my vacation that I’d really like to work the wine vineyards here:

Last week was MSU‘s spring break and contrary to popular belief, I did take the week off. That’s right – no work, meetings or even PRSSA… OK, just a little bit of that. But still, it was nice to finally have some time off to relax.

With all of the new online tools, it’s easy to get lost in work. And with some big exams/midterms coming up, it’s even harder for me to stay away from the computer. I’ll be the first to admit that it was really difficult, but I’m proud to say I learned some important lessons. More than just learning how to step away, I learned a lot of balance. Here’s how I did it:

• I limited myself online. I went online for about an hour a day, mostly because I normally steal my neighbor’s wireless and it wasn’t working. Needless to say, it was interesting. Between work and school I end up online a lot, so I had plenty of time to get out and enjoy not being connected to the rest of the world. Even though I missed some earthquakes and scandals, it felt great.
• I made small goals for each day. Instead of cramming at the end of break (like I normally would have done), I completed a couple of smaller tasks each day. For the bigger projects, I broke them up and tackled pieces each day. By the end of break, I had a lot done. I even stayed offline for the entire day yesterday.
• I scheduled some personal time. Whether it was getting caught up in the reading for the PR Book Club, or taking a nap or even getting caught up with friends, I managed to make sure I had fun every day. Hey, I do this at school already, but I want to get better at making sure I have personal time every day.
• I studied without my laptop. And I got a lot of studying done in a shorter period of time. This really shouldn’t be a surprise to me. Normally, I’m rocking some Beethoven symphonies with my e-mail open and have my books/notes open. This week I’ll test this out while I’m studying for these exams.

Overall, it was about making my time more efficient and balanced. My new goal is to focus more on each individual task and not to get distracted with other things. And what do you know, Pick the Brain has the perfect post for me today. I’ll blog about this soon. Next step – turn off my phone. We’ll see if that ever happens.

How do you get away from work and commitments? And how do you balance working on multiple projects at the same time?