How do you manage with people who demand your time?

[Iltavilli]

I have a busy job, with a long commute, and a large amount of work to do for supporting professional qualifications. It is tough and my employer isn’t hugely helpful. Essentially for the medium-term, work is quite consuming. I’m out of the house 12 hours a day, then have to do additional work in the evening and at weekends.
I’ve also a hobby, a club I help manage, which takes around an hour a day (try to do this on the commute but not always possible), plus a half day a fortnight. I enjoy this so really don’t want to let it go.
I also have elderly parents who can ask a lot - sort their bills and so on as they aren’t tech savvy. They’re separated and both live 30mins to an hour away, so two lots of things to sort (one lot for each).
My partner’s parents live quite far but often visit. They do so without always checking in on suitability of dates, and stay at our home and of course expect to be entertained (as is appropriate of course).
The house also needs some work. A friend has offered to help in fact probably more pushed to do so, which is incredibly kind, but when they’re here they expect attention, when I just need to get on with work or study.
Not sure what I’m asking here, I’m hugely stressed at the moment and know I’m letting people down and/or pissing them off, I just want to be left alone to get on with things. Apart from my hobby I’ve no friends really as I’ve no time to see them. I feel like I’m constantly dashing from one place to another, one demand to another.

Argh!

I'm working on this myself

One trick I've learned is to be more comfortable just ignoring messages or waiting a few days to reply to them? (By which time either I've decided what I want to do and what suits me or the person contacting me has learned that they need to deal with it themselves ?)

I got rid of a few needy time consuming types a few years ago and it did my mental health a world of good!

The other thing to consider (which might be painful ) is if there's some social trade off for you which you might be subconsciously making in not putting your needs first? E.g. I used to like having interactions in which Id do everything for martyr victims types because I was nervous about taking time to work on myself and scared i wouldn't be liked - may as well have had a USERS COME here sign on my forehead!

You need to get your partner to have a word with his parents stressing that a, you need to agree dates in advance and b, you've got so much on at the moment that you can't host - if they want to come they'll need to stay elsewhere and amuse themselves some of the time.

That sounds really hard op. As pp said, don't get back to people straight away. I find if i say no to people, I empower them to do things for themselves. Could it help to frame things in this way?
Put yourself first. Who will look after you if you become unwell due to stress?

Another thing I would add is to be prepared for a bit of push-back. Users will guilt trip you\try to get you involved in discussion of having to "justify yourself" because that's what they do?

It's taken me a couple years to disentangle myself from some user friends and I got the occasional passive aggressive message for a while afterwards trying to virtually stalk me (this is from people who treated me like a slave with no needs of my own when I knew them - they'd do things like tell me they were too broke to eat so I'd pick up the bill or host, then tell me that they were spending X amount on going out with someone else )

I'd literally just make an excuse up and stop answering messages where you can as most using types KNOW they are users - they will run through people trying to identify "victims " where they can

I also think there's a certain "type" of woman who is quite vulnerable to users - if you're bright and conscientious (and from what you say about your work i assume you're hard working and on a good career path) then you probably have a sense of "duty" and responsibility and maybe even feel a bit guilty that you're doing well in life? But your hard work is for you - you don't owe anything to anyone else?

In your situation there is no way I'd be hosting or entertaining people, particularly if they have invited themselves. Leave them to crack on and do not feel guilty!! If they were polite and considerate people they wouldn't be imposing on you, so don't feel obligated to be polite to them!

@Iltavilli
What I'd do is arrange for as many of your parent's bills and stuff to come out via monthly direct debit and standing order. You can help arrange it all so they're not having to get their head around everything being online and once done you have that off your plate and a full record of all payments and bills made.

Your partner needs to have a friendly word with his parents add a few white lies on if need be and say you are going to be busy through work and have plans to get work done in your house so for that reason will need some notice because they could rock up and find neither of you are in and / or the house full of dust and people doing the work. It's not an unreasonable thing to ask and they're pretty rude in not even having the courtesy to give you some form of heads up.

I would not have this friend do any of the work if you can avoid it. In fact I'd avoid it at all costs. If they're already getting on your nerves and expecting to be waited on chances are they'll do the same when they're supposed to working and nothing can break even close friendships than having them do work rather than get professionals.

Might be cheaper or at least seem cheaper but you could easily find it' not worth the hassle or few saved because if they're under the feet, not cracking on with the work or do a shoddy job you're stuck with an even bigger nightmare and half a house.

Be a little more ruthless but don't worry there's anything wrong with drawing a line and deciding to call it you're not being rude or impolite at all :)