Balancing Full-time MBA & Work During a Global Pandemic

As the education system gradually became online, it became easy to work and simultaneously study for a postgraduate degree. I wanted to explore the practical side also when I started my MBA. As a fresher I didn’t have work-ex and doing internships with your MBA can help you in many ways. But, is time management really that easy? After all, we have only 24 hours in a day. Here are some tips which I used when I started working with Webshakers along with my Full-time MBA program at Welingkar:

1. Know your limitations and select flexible hours for your job:
   Look for an internship that matches your work capacity. Do not overestimate it or fall under planning fallacy. I was able to manage my internship with an MBA because it had a flexible working hours option.
2. Share your tasks list with your employer:
   Plan your list of work in advance and share it with your employer and co-workers. In WebShakers we have a “To Do Sheet ‘’ for everyone so that we plan our day there. I blocked my time for college tasks and meetings together with internship work in my to-do list and realized that now my days have become much more organized with less distraction as my colleagues know when to contact me.
3. Use a time management tool:
   Whether it’s a planner, a software program, or a phone app. I have set enough reminders on my google calendar so that I don’t miss any meetings and don’t have pending work at the end of the day. Also a great way to achieve everything in the To-do.
4. Know what gives you motivation:
   There are times when your productivity is high and times when it’s low. By knowing when such things happen and what triggers your motivation it will be easy to get work done. My motivation is high when I know what’s the next assigned task so that I can hop on to it. Observe when you are most active and you will get your motivation triggers.
5. Screen Time Monitoring:
   With everything now online It’s important to analyze our screen time and reduce the unproductive use of screens. I felt more recharged and energetic when I started doing it. I use the built-in feature of screen time locks in my phone for saving myself from random scrolling in different social media. There are applications like ZenScreen, Social Fever, Clockify (for PC), etc available for the same.

Many of this also depends on which organization you select to work and if they believe in the learning and development of their employees. In my case, I am lucky enough to work with WebShakers and am able to balance between a Full-time MBA and work. I got sabbatical leaves for exams, flexible hours, and helpful coworkers. This is what WebShakers culture is all about.