Work, internship and self care

I'll be starting an internship next year and once I go to Grad school I'll have to do an internship as well. The one next year will be about 20 hours a week. I also work 40 hours a week. Has anyone else managed an internship, full time work and being able to do self care activities to de-stress.

[Stacey]

I'll be in the same situation as you when I'm in grad school next year, so I'm interested to see what others say. However, I have a bit of experience with this in the sense that, up until about 2019 I have always worked 3-4 jobs to make ends meet. I would work my "full-time" job which would be about 4-10 hours a day depending (it was an awful environment and unknown schedule, 10/10 do not recommend) then once I left there some days I would go home to do my virtual assistant work, or go to the office of my therapist friend where I would do her bookeeping/admin work, or go to the university to proctor (before or after work) for about 4-8 hours depending. I worked all of these jobs 6-7 days a week, I had absolutely no time for myself.

It was a necessity at the time to work this much, but I definitely started to take notice of burn-out and it's effects on me and slowly started to schedule more time for myself, without impacting my work commitments (as I couldn't afford to adjust my schedules). I found it really helpful to do block scheduling, here's a quick breakdown.
That allowed me to prioritize my work schedule while also physically setting aside time for my self-care and personal needs.

I kind of gave up block scheduling when I got a full-time job 3 years ago that had a set schedule (and better pay) and went down to only doing my freelance content writing and virtual assisting in a more relaxed way - taking on projects when I know i have the time, or small projects that are easy to complete in an hour or two. That worked for me for a while, but I've found myself falling back into the habit of prioritizing work, other people's needs, etc over my own again and feeling some burnout from working in healthcare during the pandemic so I'm considering starting to use this technique again. It will also get me back into the rhythm of things for when I start school in January and need to prioritize my school commitments on top of my work ones.

[hocus pocus]

I'm in a similar situation to you, but I am balancing different things. Currently I have an internship, school, my health and a few others. Next year I will be starting grad school as well.

I think it's a bit different for everyone, but I do try to fit things in when I can. For instance, sometimes I get a burst of energy at a weird time, like late at night. I'll find something to use it for. Maybe I have twenty minutes between an appointment and a Zoom call for my internship. I can use that few minutes to answer emails or check my grades.

I do prioritize my assignments for school, see what is due first, or what is more important. My internship follows. I work with three people for my internship so I prioritize that and also look at who I last worked with.

I don't have any specific scheduling but for a while I did schoolwork on certain days of the week, like Monday-Thursday and did other tasks the last few days of the week. Someone I know gets their assignments done before the weekend. So, even if they have to work one of their jobs they at least can count on those two days a week when he doesn't have to do school assignments. I might go back to this as I find it helpful.

A big thing for me is not doing assignments after a certain time at night (if I can help it). It gives me an hour or two to unwind and do one of my hobby activities. I still check my emails and stuff like that but I try not to do any assignments or anything like that.

As for self-care I rely on the little things, like freshly washed sheets on my bed, maybe a new body wash or a few minutes longer to do my hair. Maybe it's a face mask or a favorite food.

Best of luck with grad school, your internship and work. You'll have to tell me about it throughout the process.

Thank you both for the suggestions and ideas. I am hoping that I will be able to figure out some type of schedule once it all starts. I know I will start getting more information about the internship sometime in June. I think I will put together my resume and all that. I am hoping that finding a compatible internship won't be hard. I know that a lot of the people in the program will need night/weekend internships but I am hoping my resume will be competitive enough that I will be able to find some.