[Darth-Apple]

For those of us who stay busy, how do you manage your schedule? I know some people who manage to work 55+ hours a week, and are in school full time. Never quite understood how they did it...  

For me, it's planning everything well in advanced. I'm very rigid with my schedule, and that helps a lot. How do you find yourself managing your time when things get busy?

[Guardian]

I don't. Its all a mess. I don't even plan for most things anymore, its just chaos and I go with the flow.

[Juneberry]

What's a schedule? <- the reason I barely get anything done, besides laziness and health demands.

[Lain]

I used to work 30hr weeks while in high school (40hrs/week +/- a couple hours when I ditched class), and had the paychecks (and tipout money from the restaurant) to prove it.
(1$ tip per hour worked which totalled to 60$ cash in my hands every two weeks.)

Wouldn't recommend it, my grades tanked as a result, but luckily I was taking classes outside of school (international language class) which counted as a couple high school credits so I was able to get an easy 90 without any work which bumped my grade up and got me into university. But alas that's not everyone's circumstance, so if you don't have a safety net like that to make up for lost grades then don't f*** do it haha.

---

Second year uni was similar, 26hr weeks (two 13hr shifts every weekend) and again although my grades tanked, I also had enough friends that I could borrow notes from or use them as motivation to study because we'd meet up to work on something which was nice. End of the year grades weren't amazing, but hey, it worked.

Third year (current year) I stopped working to solely focus on getting my GPA back up and that's been going pretty well. Getting 90s on midterms and 100s on assignments with all the free time I have now, and I still meet up with people to work on stuff.

---

I don't like working with schedules too much. I feel like there's an obligation for me to do stuff, and when I'm under that sort of obligation, I'm much less likely to get shit done because it really does feel a lot more stressful, like I'm at work 24/7.

Of course I do roughly plan what I'll do for the day/week if I'm really busy. Got a couple whiteboards in my room dedicated to all sorts of stuff:

1. Writing school work, what I need to study, important deadlines, etc.
   
2. Keeping track of my orders for writing papers, when they're due, who paid me or hasn't paid me, outstanding debts, people who's knees need cracking for them to pay their f*** tic, etc.
   
3. General purpose for writing equations and solving (eco-friendly)
   

So at least I can keep myself organized and not forget about too many errands I have.

So naturally I have a base schedule in my head (classes, bus schedules+commute lengths, any other regular activities) which changes every four months when a new semester starts or I get a job, and whenever I'm making plans, I just think about that schedule to find when I have free time.
As I make plans or get a deadline, I write it down on my respective whiteboard. Writing helps solidify that in my brain so I don't forget either.
Next time I make plans, I just think of those dates and times and then I can come up with whether or not I have free time.

I only ever think a week or two in advance. Sometimes only a day before. I don't really make long-term plans or goals because progress towards those goals will always seem too small which isn't good at motivating me, and having that much time to do something also makes me procrastinate which will f*** me up more too. The furthest I'll plan ahead is one month, give or take a few days, and it's only if it's something really important like if there's a concert and I'm buying tickets, or planning on travelling somewhere. But, before I commit to either of those, I try to get as close as reasonably possible before I start planning, because I need to make sure I'll be in a good financial spot (no outstanding debts from people or unexpected expenses). Don't like going back on plans because of something stupid, and if there are other people involved in the plans then I don't want to let them down either, so the closer I get, the more stable I feel about it.

[SpookyZalost]

I stick to a lose schedule, important things first then other stuff, it helps until something throws a spanner into the works.