Studying in Grad-school

Perhaps this is not everyone's experience but it feels sometimes even more difficult to study in graduate school. I don't know if it is because I am in part-time school and full-time work, or that I am just a bit older and more things have come into my life than just doing school now, or at the moment if it is adjusting to online school work. I don't feel that the work has truly gotten more difficult. Perhaps it has and I am just not paying attention or if it is that I am focused solely on social work classes so because all the classes I am taking are in the same subject instead of 5 different subjects. Yes, there are topics that might be challenging. Research class has been challenging my abilities and requires a lot of knowledge about how to run a research project, but the actual material doesn't seem more difficult than what I was doing in undergrad. 

I think the struggle that I am finding is that there seems to be so much more going on in my life now and so many more things taking up space in my brain than just school work. I am thinking about taking care of my car and thinking about paying some bills. With my job I am doing a full-time job that requires a lot of active thinking and working with coworkers that are different than the jobs I was doing on campus in undergrad. My on-campus jobs know that I am a student and the expectations were different. Not so with a "real grown-up job" the expectations are different being a student is fine and encouraged but your boss is not also working at the institute where you are studying. 

Now let's add this whole COVID-19 onto the experience. Now everything is online and I am very much missing the structure of meeting in person. I feel a bit more on my own and while I was homeschooled, homeschooling in high school is very different than trying to do at-home learning as a grad student. Add to that when you are doing online meetings with tutors or professors and your family and cat are around. Mostly my family is respectful of my needs, the cat not so much but she is gonna do what she wants. I have found the importance of making check-lists for the day of what needs to be done, putting due dates into a calendar, and also taking regular breaks to get up and move at home. Sometimes also extrinsic motivation like "I will watch the youtube video I want if I do ______". 

If you are a current grad-school student what are your experience with studying and how is it different from undergrad? If you are a student of any kind how are you managing studying from home?