Time Management as a Full-Time Employee and a Doctoral Student

By Ethan Williams

Happy April from your friendly Spring 2026 Gardner Institute Graduate Intern! As the readers of last month’s blog post likely noticed, I am a very busy person. Between a full-time job in student affairs, an eighteen-month-old daughter, my doctoral program, stepping into my new role as the Co-Chair for the Administrators in Graduate and Professional Services (AGAPSS) Knowledge Community within the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), and this wonderful internship opportunity, I have a lot going on this spring! If you are curious how I am able to bring all of these parts of my life together without leaving anything behind, please read on.

First, Some Context

You can read the full story of who I am in last month’s blog post, but it is important to understand where I am coming from. I work full-time, forty hours a week, at UNT Health Fort Worth. I am enrolled in three doctoral courses this summer, nine credit hours, and my internship with the Gardner Institute is ten to fifteen hours per week. 

Additionally, my family is extremely important to me, so it is a major goal of mine to attend to my professional commitments while also remaining a present father and husband.

What Works for Me

I want to preface this section by saying that what works for me might not work for everyone, but knowing my system may help you to develop a schedule that fits your lifestyle and allows you to take full advantage of professional development opportunities. 

The key to managing multiple tasks with conflicting deadlines is organization, and making some sort of organized to-do list is the key. With multiple commitments, getting tasks out of my head and written down works wonders.

Personally, I use Google Tasks for this. I have one “bucket” for each of my commitments – one for my full-time job, one for my Gardner Institute internship, and a separate one for my classes. Under each bucket, I add tasks and due dates so that I can check them off when they are completed. I have always been a pen and paper kind of person, but I have found that an online to-do list is very helpful. I can always have Google Tasks open in one tab on my computer, so I can quickly reference it throughout the day to make sure I am on track.

Pro Tip

At the beginning of each semester, I take my syllabi and add each of my class assignments and readings to my Google Task list. I also set the due dates for the day before they are actually due.

As far as juggling the time requirements for each of my commitments, I try to take advantage of all the time in the day. On Mondays, for example, I wake up at 5:00 AM and work on Gardner Institute intern tasks for an hour and a half, then I get my daughter up from bed and fed breakfast, and I leave for work at 7:30 AM. 

I work at my full-time job from 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM. I am fortunate to have thirty minutes in my day for wellness time and an hour for lunch, both of which I use to work on my internship tasks from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM. Next, I work on my full-time job from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM. During the work day, I also have flexibility to take meetings for my internship alongside work commitments as long as I make the hours up in another way. 

When I get home, I play with my daughter and get her fed and bathed before putting her to bed. After dinner with my wife, I work on my school, and I do my class readings right before bed. This semester, I have one in-person class which is on Wednesdays from 5:30 to 8:20 PM. If at all possible, I avoid doing any work or school on the weekends so that I can use that time to be present with my family.

Reading that back, it feels overwhelming; however, it is completely manageable for me. It all boils down to using my time efficiently, scheduling things out in advance, and creating checklists to ensure that I am completing my tasks on time. I am also very fortunate to have an amazing support system, between my wife and supervisor, that fully supports my professional development.

Why I Do It

Simply put, I am a very driven person. I know what my professional goals are, and I prioritize taking steps to help me achieve them. However, it is important to me to be a good father and husband in addition to working toward these goals. When grappling with these two aspects of my life, one of my favorite higher education scholars, Burton Clark, comes to mind. Though he wrote mostly about academic structures, I appreciate his rhetoric about values and principles in decision making. In pursuit of gaining education and experiences that will lead me to my career goals, my value of providing a comfortable life for my family while being engaged and present, drives my professional goals

I have no doubt that the late nights at class or the missed lunch breaks will be worth it. I am still young, so I might as well spend my time soaking in every opportunity that I can, learning how I can be the best advocate and support for students, and meeting wonderful people like those who work at the Gardner Institute!

Ethan Williams is the Spring 2026 Spring Graduate Intern at the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Higher Education. He is a student in the Doctor of Education (EdD) in Higher Education program at University of North Texas, and he serves as the Senior Student Services Coordinator in the Center for Student Life at UNT Health Fort Worth.