My Top Three Ways of Staying Organized and Sane: Balancing PRSSA’s Bateman competition, a full CSULB class load, and a “real job”

By: Jonathan Rulison

Getting involved with different activities and jobs on and off-campus is a great way to learn public relations while expanding your professional horizons. But, as a developing public relations professional, you know how overwhelming life can get when you’re trying to balance everything. I’m the creative director of the 2020 PRSSA-LB Bateman team, I work two jobs and take a full 15 units. Here are 3 strategies I use to help me keep it all together.

1. Setting Reminders
If you have a phone, you probably have a reminders app. Use it! Whenever you’re given a task, get a homework assignment, need to remember a birthday or whatever else, set a reminder! You can set your app to remind you at whatever time or location you want and it takes a whole 15 seconds. Alternatively, you can use Google Calendar to input those same reminders and view everything you have to in a convenient calendar format. If you link it with your phone, Google Calendar can also send you time-based reminders to keep you on track. I’ve genuinely lost count of how many times these apps reminded me of something I had completely forgotten about, saving my life. Use them!

2. Department of Journalism & Public Relations resources

Odds are, if you’re in the JPR department, you’ve taken a lot of classes on the ground floor of the LA4 building. But you might not know what hidden gems lie upstairs. LA4-206 is the Lee Brown Study Room, it has a few sets of tables and chairs, some spare textbooks and a couple of Macs equipped with the Adobe Suite. Lee Brown is usually pretty empty, so it’s a great place to work independently or with a group, especially if you want to avoid the library crowds. Next door to Lee Brown is LA4-207, a computer lab that has enough Adobe-enabled Macs to keep a small class worth of people busy. With plenty of computers and printers, the computer lab is a convenient place to go whether you need to quickly use one of your free prints before class or spend a few hours creating the perfect edit for that video in Premiere.

3. Consistent communication
Communication is key! When you’re involved in a project with other people, you must stay in constant contact while working with them. Throughout your project, stuff is going to come up. Team members are going to get sick, software is going to glitch, life is going to happen, nobody can control that. But what you can control is how you respond to it. When things come up, let your teammates know! When you keep your teammates in the loop, they can budget time to help you out and keep things on track. When your team is informed and updated, your team is happy. When your team is happy, your team works well!

Remember, even amid your hectic schedule, try to take the time to do your future self a favor. You’ll thank me, and yourself, later.