Finding My Rhythm: The Real Talk About Balancing Work and Studies as an International Student

The jumble of a new life: Trying to fit the pieces together, one word at a time.

The baby is crying. Not the soft cry, the one that means he is hungry and will wait. The sharp one. The one that means now. My five-year-old is pulling my sleeve, asking something in Dutch, his words too fast for my tired brain. My phone is buzzing, a message from work, a reminder about a deadline, an email I have been ignoring. My Dutch book is open on the table. I have been staring at the same sentence for ten minutes. De zon schijnt. The sun shines. I have read it seventeen times. I have understood nothing.

This is my life. Every day. The noise. The demands. The endless pull of attention in a hundred directions. And somewhere in the middle of it, I am supposed to find focus. I am supposed to learn. I am supposed to become someone who can speak this language, pass this test, build this life.

But my mind will not stay still. It jumps from the baby to the email to the Dutch word I cannot remember to the thought of my father in Nepal, alone in the village, wondering if I will call today.

Focus feels impossible. Some days, it is impossible. And I have learned that pretending otherwise is a lie I cannot afford to tell myself anymore.

The Struggle with Focus

My mind has never been this scattered.

Before children, I could sit for an hour, two hours, and read. Before Belgium, I could focus without effort. My village was quiet. The loudest thing was the rooster. The only demand was the work in front of me.

Now there is always something. Always someone. Always a sound, a need, a thought that pulls me away.

I sit to study, and my brain goes to the baby. Is he sleeping? Will he wake in five minutes? Should I check? I open the book, and my eyes go to my phone. A notification. A message. Maybe it is important. Maybe it is nothing. I check anyway. I lose ten minutes. I come back to the sentence. De zon schijnt. I start again.

The worst is when I am in class. The baby has slept. My wife has taken the morning. I have no excuse. I am sitting in a room with a teacher and a whiteboard and other students who seem to understand. And my mind is somewhere else. In the village. In the kitchen. In the hallway at 3 AM, walking with a crying baby. The teacher asks a question. I do not hear it. She asks again. I answer wrong. My face gets hot. I shrink in my chair.

This is not laziness. This is exhaustion. This is the weight of carrying too many things at once. This is the truth of a life that does not stop to let you focus.

The beautiful noise: My children’s world is vibrant, but my focus is often caught in the middle.

What Didn't Work

I tried everything. The things people told me to do.

Long study hours. I thought if I could just sit for two hours, I would make progress. I sat for two hours. I read the same page six times. I remembered nothing. My brain was not there. It was in the other room, listening for the baby. It was at work, thinking about the deadline. It was in Nepal, missing my mother's voice.

Waiting for perfect silence. I told myself I would study when the baby slept, when my older son was at school, when the apartment was quiet. That time never came. Or when it came, I was too tired to use it. The silence was not a gift. It was an empty space where exhaustion filled in.

Forcing focus. I tried to push through. To concentrate harder. To make my brain obey. It did not work. You cannot force a tired mind to focus. You can only sit there, staring at the page, pretending, while the words mean nothing.

These things did not work because they were designed for a life I do not have. A life with quiet mornings and uninterrupted afternoons and a mind that is not already full to bursting.

What Actually Works

I had to find another way. A way that fits into the cracks of this distracted life.

Short focus time. I do not study for an hour anymore. I study for twenty minutes. Sometimes fifteen. Sometimes ten. I set a timer. When it rings, I stop. Even if I want to continue. Especially if I want to continue. Knowing the time is short helps me stay present. There is no room to wander. Just enough time to do something small.

The 15-minute rule: In a house that never stops, time is the most precious thing I own.

No phone. This was hard. But I learned that my phone is the enemy of focus. Not because it is bad. Because it is easy. When my brain gets tired, my hand reaches for it. The distraction is a relief. But the relief lasts a moment, and then the guilt lasts the rest of the day. Now I put my phone in another room. I cannot see it. I cannot hear it. I forget it exists. And my brain, with nowhere else to go, stays on the page.

Early morning. Before the baby wakes. Before my older son needs breakfast. Before the world starts demanding things. I wake early. Twenty minutes. Sometimes thirty. I do not check my phone. I do not make tea. I open the book. This is the only time my mind is truly mine. And I protect it like something precious.

Dead time. I use the moments that would otherwise be wasted. Feeding the baby, I listen to a podcast. Waiting for the bus, I review words. Walking to school with my older son, I practice saying numbers in Dutch. He corrects me. He laughs. We are together, and I am learning. This is not perfect focus. But it is focus. And it adds up.

Accepting imperfect focus. This was the hardest lesson. Some days I cannot focus. Not for ten minutes. Not for five. My brain is too tired, too full, too scattered. I used to fight this. I would sit at the table and force myself to read and feel guilty when nothing stuck. Now I accept it. I close the book. I rest. I let myself be what I am: a father of two young children, working full time, learning a new language. Some days, focus is not possible. That is not failure. That is life.

The Truth About Focus

Here is what I have learned, sitting in this kitchen with cold tea and a book that has been open too long:

Focus is not about perfect conditions. I used to wait for silence, for time, for the right moment. Those moments almost never came. Now I focus in the cracks. In the noise. In the five minutes before the baby wakes. This is not ideal. But it is real. And it works.

Focus is about showing up. Some days I study for twenty minutes. Some days I study for five. Some days I only open the book, read one sentence, and close it. But I show up. Every day. And showing up, even for a moment, keeps the path alive. It tells my brain: this matters. We are still doing this.

Five minutes matters. I used to think that if I could not study for an hour, it was not worth starting. Now I know that five minutes is five minutes more than zero. Five minutes is a word learned, a sentence understood, a small victory. Five minutes, repeated every day, becomes hours. Becomes progress. Becomes change.

My Real Routine

This is what focus looks like in my life right now. Not a schedule. Not a plan. Just the shape of my days.

Morning 15 minutes. I wake before everyone. The apartment is quiet. I open my Dutch book. I read one page. Sometimes two. When the baby cries, I close it. No guilt. I did what I could.

Work break 10 minutes. I step outside. I review three words from the morning. I say them out loud. People look at me strangely. I do not care. I am learning.

Commute 20 minutes. On the bus, I listen to a podcast. I do not try to understand everything. I just let the words wash over me. My ear learns even when my mind is resting.

With my older son 5 minutes. We play a game. He teaches me a Dutch word. I teach him a Nepali word. He laughs at my accent. I laugh at his. We are both learning. Neither of us feels like we are working.

Before sleep 5 minutes. I think about one thing I learned today. Just one. If I remember it, the day was a success. If I do not, I try again tomorrow.

This is not the routine I imagined. It is smaller. Messier. Less impressive. But it is mine. It fits into the cracks. And it is keeping me moving.

What I Learned About My Parents

I have been thinking about focus in a different way lately. About my parents.

My mother is 72. She has never read a book. She cannot write her name. She does not know how to dial a mobile number, only how to receive a call, pressing the green button when it lights up. But she knows everything about our home. The goats, when they need to be fed. The buffalo, when she is ready to be milked. The farm, when the rain is enough and when it is too much. She has led our house for fifty years, quietly, without books or screens or study plans.

My father wakes at 4 AM. He works until the sun goes down. He has never complained about focus. He has never needed to. His focus was the land, the animals, the family. There was nothing to distract him because there was nothing else. His mind was where his hands were. Always.

They fought. Of course they fought. My father is stubborn. My mother is strong. They argued about money, about the children, about which field to plant first. Some days they did not speak. Some days the silence between them was heavy enough to feel.

But I never doubted that they loved each other. Not once.

When my mother fell sick two years ago, my father did not sleep. He sat beside her bed, feeding her, changing her, talking to her even when she was too weak to answer. I called from Belgium, and he said "She will be fine, nani. I am here."

That is focus. Not the kind you learn from books. The kind that comes from love.

When my mother recovered, she went back to scolding him. Back to arguing about the goats, about the buffalo, about the way he leaves his tools outside. And he went back to listening, pretending to be annoyed, smiling when she was not looking.

That is their life. Small. Hard. Full of work and worry and the quiet love of two people who have built something together.

A different kind of focus: My parents never read a book, but they mastered the art of holding on.

I think of them when I struggle to focus. When my mind is scattered and the noise is too much and I feel like I am failing. I think of my mother, who never learned to read, raising three children in a house with no electricity. I think of my father, carrying me through the dark for three hours because there was no other way. They focused on what mattered. Not because it was easy. Because it was the only thing to do.

What You Will Learn

If you are reading this and you are struggling to focus, I want you to know:

You do not need more time. You need less distraction. Put the phone away. Close the extra tabs. Let yourself be where you are.

Five minutes is enough. You do not need to study for hours. You need to show up for five minutes. Every day. That is how change happens.

Focus is not about perfect conditions. It is about showing up in the conditions you have. The noise, the children, the work, the exhaustion, these are not obstacles. They are your life. Learn inside them.

Your parents were focused, even if they never read a book. Focus is not about studying. It is about being present. About doing what needs to be done. About showing up for the people who need you.

You are not failing. You are trying. In a life that does not stop. That is not failure. That is everything.

A Request

I want to hear from you.

How do you find focus in your distracted life? What works for you? What do you struggle with? Do you think of your parents when you need to focus?

Share in the comments below. Your story might be exactly what someone else needs to hear today.

Because we are all in this together. All distracted. All trying. All learning that focus is not about the hours we spend. It is about the moments we protect.

Closing

The baby is sleeping. My older son is in his room, building towers with blocks. My wife is resting. The apartment is quiet in that rare way that feels like a gift.

I have my Dutch book open. I have been writing this blog instead of studying. But that is okay. This is focus too. Just a different kind.

Tonight, I will call my parents. My mother will pick up, she always picks up, pressing the green button like a miracle. She will ask if I have eaten. I will ask about the goats, the buffalo, the farm. My father will get on the phone and say the same thing he always says: "Thikai chu, babu." I am fine, son.

The call that reminds me why I am here.

And I will think about them. Together. In that small house. Arguing about small things. Loving each other in the only way they know how.

That is focus. That is what I am learning.

Not from books. From them.

With love,
-Bitty

🙏❤️

Five minutes. Every day. That is enough.