How to juggle studies and your start-up job?
By: Emanuel Hristov
Tags: Startup, Study, Working From Home, Planning, Time Management

Hi!

It has been a while since I first wanted to share my experiences and thoughts on Medium. I have finally decided to write my first post and I’m super excited to how this journey will turn up to be. Any feedback or comments are welcome, so I can improve my future posts :)

Many of us are thinking that when we graduate from university we will have all the answers and can make healthy decisions. In my case, I was SO WRONG.

Studying was definitely not over and time management was something that I haven’t developed enough as a student, even though I have spent hundreds of hours working part-time while being in the library every day preparing for exams and writing assignments under pressure.

Just remember even if you don’t go through the rest of my post:

‘Consistent hard work leads to success’-Dwayne Johnson

A little intro about me

You can skip this and head to ‘Face the challenge’.

My name is Emanuel and I’m currently based in London.

I have graduated from university in 2018 and been working since. My degree was in Accounting and Finance, thus I’ve decided to pursue a career as a Financial Analyst.

I have joined one of the largest companies in the world as my first job straight out of university but in less than a year I was confident enough to quit and move into the start-up world where I was hoping to achieve greater things.

Currently I’m working within the Finance team of a FinTech company and my journey is what keeps me up at night, for good reasons.

I love playing sports, reading business and philosophy books and doing photography.

Why I decided to start blogging?

I have been passionate about writing for a very long time. I have been writing short stories, novels and keeping a journal since I was 14 years old but never got into starting a blog.

However, with my current experience of juggling a full-time job within a fast pace start-up company where every day is a challenge which keeps me pushing new boundaries and my studies for an ACCA qualification, I decided to share what I have learned and hopefully be able to help someone who is in the same boat as me.

Face the challenge

We are striving for career success and pushing ourselves to achieve our personal goals, but not all of us are confident enough to face the challenges and discomfort of spending your whole day of just work and studies.

Invitation to myself: ‘Hold the vision, trust the process’ — Unknown

One thing I’ve learned after studying 3 months for each of my exams so far is that consistency is rewarded. However, there have been many tiring days or times where I just wanted to play on the PS4 or just binge watch ‘Shameless’, but my inner ‘career focused’ self kept me on track.

You need to be aware that sacrifices will be made but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. With my lack of time management skills I decided to improve this and read a few books on procrastination and project/time management. I have developed a schedule where I was planning my fun days in advance and allocating time for exercise throughout the week. My social life got more exciting and I never did the same thing or went to a bar twice. I was allocating time and planning in advance, so I was able to find the best place for the activity that I was doing and helped me step away from all my other responsibilities.