It’s so hard to manage your schedule in a new city, a new country, and a new culture. Missing my friends and family, all I want to do is distract myself by meeting new people and visiting new places– doing anything that I want at any time of the day. Muddle the sadness. As I would love to spend the 8 hours walking and tramming to historical sights in Prague, I signed up for a 9-5. Despite my bitterness, I love the structure that the 9-5 gives me (my internship is a 8-4:30 but I digress). It gives me a routine that I am able to follow every day instead of waking up each morning guessing where my day will end up. As a very type-A person, this takes off a lot of stressors on my shoulders and stops the anxiety from overwhelming me. Some days I am not sure where I want to go so I will spend about 3 hours of my day finding the most perfect, cheapest cafe near my apartment.
If you’re wondering, this is what my schedule looks like every day. I wake up at 6:30 am and get ready for dinner/make myself breakfast. My usual breakfast looks like a coffee made out of a Moka pot and 2 rice cake with peanut butter and bananas. My roommate is usually dead asleep, so I like to do my makeup in the kitchen while I eat my breakfast. My internship is a 30-minute walk or a 25-minute tram ride (I will be getting my steps in, so I walk). So, around 7:15-7:30am I will leave my house and maybe stop for a cappuccino if I feel like I am walking particularly faster that day. Then I end up at the office at 8am and they give me a bunch of Excel sheets to work on. During this time, I am praying I am not messing up. Finally, when the confidence sets in that I am filling out these Excel sheets correctly it is 4:30pm and time to walk home. Sometimes on my walk home I will run into a friend and we will walk home together. Sometimes I stop at the grocery store to pick up ingredients for my dinner. Most of times I take off all my work clothes, change into sweats, and knock on my roommates door to ask how her day was. After that, we will go walk around the various parks around our apartment.
If you can’t tell already, I love Prague. I love how my days ebb and flow. What I have found great in managing my time is to allow myself some room to be flexible. Some days, you have to forgive yourself for just wanting to sit on your phone for 3 hours looking up the best restaurant for dinner. Having something to fall back on like a routine and to-do list will help you manage your time and be successful professionally and socially.