I think one of the most frequent questions I get asked is how do I balance everything that I do. I’ve always been one to fill my life and days with lots of activities. I almost feel strange and discombobulated when I have a day where I have nothing to do. But that doesn’t mean that for me, college and work (in my case book blogging on Instagram and Youtube) fit seamlessly together. Actually, I find them clashing most of the time, both asking for a lot of my time and effort. However, I’m passionate about both. I love what I am studying in college, and I love books and blogging. So I have to figure out ways to balance my two passions, which is not an easy task. I have found many other people struggle with this, so I am going to be sharing some tips that I’ve used to help you and others manage college and your passions!
1. Have a Planner!
I know this seems like such a basic suggestion. You might be wondering how this article is different from another article saying how to balance your different areas in life. But this article is focusing specifically on people connected to the book community and blogging. For me, I love having two different planners. One is for school and my “regular” life. The other is for any work related things or blog posts, books I need or want to buy, new releases I need to keep in mind coming out in the next few months. For my school planner, I usually just go to the nearest Target or paper store. I find one that inspires me to write in it. If you would rather use a bullet journal, then go for it! These journals should inspire you to do your work every day and should make the task of getting things done a fun thing. However, for book stuff, I have a company that I always go to, and that is @littleinklingsdesign on Instagram. Megan Easter is the woman who runs this beautiful bookish merchandise site, and she makes the most amazing bookish planners—what she calls Always Fully Booked and A Novel Companion. This day planner is specifically made for book nerds and has areas that will blow a book nerd’s mind. It is honestly straight out of my book nerd dreams. It has areas where you can list your TBR for the month or what books you have read this month, what books you need to buy, etc. AND it is also a regular planner with the months and days of the year. I always recommend these awesome planners to my other book friends.
2. Always, and I mean ALWAYS carry a book with you!
This might seem like something I don’t need to say, but if you love books and are a book blogger, I suggest always carrying a book. You never know when you are going to have time to read. I personally love reading between classes or on the bus to school. I also get a lot of my reading for work or for fun done at night. I usually try to set aside thirty minutes to an hour before bed where I can just read whatever I want to read.
3. Audiobooks!
I personally love listening to audiobooks, but I always struggled when I was growing up as to when to listen to them versus reading a hard copy. I believe I’m not alone in the fact that audiobooks growing up were distinctly books for the car. My family would always listen to audiobooks on long car rides or just to and from home and school. So when I moved to college and no longer had my own car, it left me wondering when I could listen to a good book. BUT GUESS WHAT??? You have loads of time when you move to college and are adulting to listen to books instead of music in the house! I personally do not live in a dorm, I live in an apartment that I have to clean and cook in. But I know that dorms are room, too, and hopefully if you are a college student, you clean your room whenever it needs it. This is the PERFECT time for audiobooks. I love putting on an audiobook when I cook or when I am cleaning the apartment. I also love listening to audiobooks when I am commuting to and from school. It is a fun, easy way to read books. Audible is personally my go-to place to buy audiobooks, but any place that sells them works great! *Whispers* You can even find audiobooks at the library or at a bookstore.
4. Stock up on photos!
I know a lot of book bloggers who don’t stock up on photos and are super great at being efficient at blogging and keeping up with life, but personally, this is something I always do to keep myself sane. For some reason, I always feel a little less stressed if I have ten photos edited and ready to post for the next week than if I only have one photo and suddenly need to find the time to take more. It eases my daily and weekly stress, and I find it incredibly helpful in planning out what my feed will look like and preparing captions for the books I will be blogging about this week.
5. Find a friend who loves photography, too!
Okay, so this is college. A time when, if you are a freshman like myself, finding new friends is kind of hard… or at least can be very daunting. This is why I like finding people that I have something in common with, and one thing I love talking about is photography. This might sound a little maniacal, but finding a friend who is an amazing photographer is very nifty as a blogger because suddenly you have a personal photographer. It also gives you someone to do bloggery things with. Blogging, reading, and even photography can sometimes be very lonely hobbies. And finding a friend who loves these things, too, can give you someone to hang out with while you are being efficient. I find that I can get a lot more done, and find the energy to get these things done, if I have a friend to do them with.
These are my five tips to all of you awesome book nerds out there who love blogging! I hope they help you as much as they have helped me!
