Worried or stressed about managing time between full-time work and studies? Don’t worry you are not alone.

Here are a few tips by Aswini Bajaj,trainer and consultant, who has been balancing both for X years:

Find your ‘Why?’ – You need to be sure and motivated enough to give that extra time to your studies and cutting down on social life. The mantra is: To achieve something, you need to compromise on something.

Keep the people around you on board- People around you should be aware of the fact that you will not be able to devote much time to them and they are supporting this decision of yours as they have your best interest in mind.

Value your time- When people around you will see that your time is valuable, they will start valuing it too.

The key to success is discipline. Not all days will be good days – you will have to handle stressful days positively as well.

To gain insights into how you can be more efficient and productive, tune into his latest podcast.

Introverted and scared of public speaking?

Wonder what skills you need to stand out from the crowd and use that to enhance your employability?

Aswini Bajaj, a trainer and a consultant, shares some important points to follow on his latest podcast.

First, read, read and read. It can range from fiction to blogs to non-fiction – anything that improves your knowledge and broadens your horizons.

Second, know your basics well – especially IT skills. Learn various tools which will help you with your work. Various shortcuts, being adept at MS Office and plethora of other optimisations tools will help you gain that edge.

Third, this is an era where you need to make your work talk and for that, develop your communication skills and your confidence by building up your knowledge base again with the help of reading.

Next, you need to be street smart to know what to do with the lemons thrown at you.

Lastly, it’s very important to have the right set of people and mentors around you.

To know more about which books or blogs to read to develop yourself, tune in to his podcasts.

Price

-The price we earn per hour is generally low in the initial years

-The initial price depends primarily on our education and basic skill set

-It increases over time as we gain experience, mature and also as and if we acquire skills while working

Quantity

-The number of productive hours is relatively fixed with a max 24 hours/day(impractical, of course)

-Declines as we grow older due to a drop in our energy levels and/or as we accumulate wealth we tend to spend more time on leisurely activities.

-In the beginning years to learn, experience, and to earn money (Since ‘P’ is low), we work more hours But sufficient hours are needed to learn in order to increase ‘P’.

-As ‘P’ increases, people become complacent – reduce the learning hours significantly – find frivolous ways to waste both time and money and therefore hit a plateau.

Total revenue

-Lower in the beginning years

-Increases over time if you can increase ‘P’ and ‘Returns’

-Hence manage your time and savings prudently

Expenses

Social media has taken consumerism to another level (Ironically, an influencer’s post about decluttering could be sponsored by some useless product). Be careful to spend on what makes you happy and spend on things you can use to optimize time and increase your productivity.

Savings

-Shall be very low in the beginning years

-The problem arises when people save the same proportion of the increase in their income. For example, if your current income is 100 and you save 20. When your income increases by 30, you do not save only 20% of 30 = 6, but probably 70-80% of 30. Increase your standard of living slowly so that you are able to grow sustainably.

Returns

– Many wannabe ‘stock traders’ and ‘investors’ start focusing on their investments instead of their core profession/business. One assumes that by superficial analysis one can outperform the markets or the managers and the job is anyways going to pay ‘P’. The problem is that you are much better off spending your time ‘Q’ in focusing and improving yourself to earn a higher ‘P’ than to enhance the returns on your investments. Even if you could hypothetically be able to generate an extra return of a couple of percent, it would be far more fruitful if you focus on your core work profile, excel in it, rise quickly, increase your total revenue and thereby total savings and investment. But quite a few end up exhibiting a lot of biases in their decision making.

There are four kinds of luck:

1. Dumb Luck: This involves the right time and place but not any effort from your end. The probability of such luck is nominal.
2. Action Luck: This is the output of consistent behaviour. It does not involve control and preparation from your end. For example, tossing a coin continuously.
3. Planned Luck- In this case, your knowledge and preparation for an activity bring you luck. The probability of the outcome here is substantially high.
4. Unique Luck: This takes ethics, value, and credibility into account. Your reputation and consistency will open up more avenues of opportunities, setting you up at the forefront of options because of your past deeds.

Three things to do to get luck in your favour:

1. It is imperative to take action; you cannot do nothing. This drives your action luck.
2. Knowledge, strategy, and reading are essential for gaining a perspective on everything. It increases your planned luck.
3. Your quality, ethics, and value systems boost your unique luck.

The greatest of leaders always attribute their success to luck and value it. On the other hand, failed leaders continually blame luck when they meet with failure and pat their own backs when things work in their favour.