This month, I returned to university while continuing my role as a Marketing Officer at Cahoots. It’s something I’d mentally prepared for, but now that I’m living it day to day, I’ve realised how much this experience is teaching me beyond just what’s in the curriculum.

Balancing work with study is more than just a scheduling challenge. It’s a crash course in focus, resilience, and what I’d call intentional energy management. When you have limited hours, you start to look at your time differently. Not just in terms of what needs to get done, but why it matters and how best to approach it.

Learning to Prioritise, Not Just Manage Time

One of the biggest mindset shifts I’ve had is around priority management. It’s easy to think the goal is to do everything but when you’re juggling competing demands, the real goal is to do the right things well.

That means asking myself questions like:

• What’s urgent, and what’s actually important?
• What requires my full creative attention, and what can be streamlined?
• Where can I add the most value today?

This way of thinking has helped me become more strategic not just in how I manage my week, but also in how I approach marketing campaigns, creative briefs, and team communication.

The Real Time Loop Between Learning and Doing

What’s been surprisingly rewarding is how directly my studies and my work inform each other. At university, I’m diving into frameworks around branding, audience behaviour, and campaign planning. Back at Cahoots, I’m immediately applying those principles by writing social content, refining strategies, and analysing engagement data in real time.

There’s something incredibly energising about being in a constant feedback loop where what I learn in a lecture on Monday can impact a report or post I’m building on Tuesday. It makes both experiences feel more connected and meaningful.

The Reality: It’s Not Always Easy

That said, I won’t pretend it’s effortless. Balancing deadlines, meetings, and assignments means sacrificing some evenings, saying no to plans, and being incredibly disciplined with time. I’ve had to embrace structure while also learning to be flexible when plans shift.

Some days are smooth. Others are overwhelming. But what keeps me going is the knowledge that this chapter, while challenging, is laying the foundation for the kind of career I want to build: one that’s creative, thoughtful, and purpose driven.

For Anyone Else in the Same Boat…

If you’re working and studying simultaneously, it can get super overwhelming! But be proud that you’re building something unique: a skillset that blends theory with practical experience, discipline with adaptability.

You’re learning to move between the classroom and the real world

That’s no small thing.