I’ve never been good at multitasking. In my brain, things work one at a time. I just can’t understand how people can pay attention to so many things at once, and I don’t think I ever will. Part of me is annoyed by this, because I will probably never be able to multitask as well as my friends can, but the other part of me is glad, because being able to focus on only one thing at once has taught me how to balance my life in order to get everything done.

Being busy isn’t a problem; it’s actually really good for your health because it keeps you from sitting on the couch watching Netflix all day. With that being said, being overwhelmed is not good for you: you spend so much time trying to get too many projects done, when in reality, some of them are probably things you don’t even enjoy. Finding a balance in life between the things that need to get done and the things you want to do are important. When you commit yourself to something, whether it’s school, a club or a job, keep in mind what the goal of that task is and decide if it’s worth doing. If it is, then make sure it’s not too overwhelming and that you can keep up with it.

When you commit to creating a healthy balance for your life, you commit to making sure you have time to do necessary things, but also to do things that are important to you. This past school year, I was so concerned with what needed to be done that I neglected things that were important to me, like spending more time with my friends and family.

When you get overwhelmed, it becomes easy to push away the important things in life. Having a balance in the things you choose to do is so important for your happiness and your health. When you are in control of your time and what you put effort into, you become a better version of yourself. You don’t need to juggle an impressive amount of activities and skills in order to be happily busy, you just need to find the things that are important to you and put 100 percent of your energy into those things.