How to control your Stress with control over YOU!!

It's the end of a very long day for me. As I sit down and look at my planner to see what I have to do for today, my eyes just go wild and my mind goes nuts. I am starting to feel stressed out, because I feel that I have a lot of work. I think personally that stress is just a feeling to make you nervous and anxious about everything. But read this: STRESS CAN BE REDUCED!!! Although sometimes you feel that stress cannot go away, trust me: EVERY PROBLEM HAS A SOLUTION. This week, I tried two strategies that can help you reduce your stress completely.

A Day at a Time

You have control over stress and this is a strategy that really spoke to me and it can speak to you. One night before going to bed, I looked and thought about the things that caused me stressed during the day. For example, I had a SPA 301 test last Thursday that was causing me stress. I studied and took the exam and it's now off my stress list. Also you can see that I have various long-term goals that are causing me stress during some parts of the week that I cannot take away for now. But once that stress is over, it's off the list. It's a great strategy that not only reminds you what stresses you have, but you can eliminate everything that doesn't cause you stress everywhere.

Stress-O-Meter

I personally didn't know that measuring your stress can be that easy. I think the Stress-O-Meter really helped me to measure my levels and attitudes to my academic abilities every day. The idea is simple: measure your stress from 1 to 5 (1 is fine, 5 is super stressed), find the cause of the stress, and put a stress reducer that you use. I love listening to music, so that is a super stress reducer to me. This is a great way to measure and reduce your stress and see how you act against academic situations every day.

My Thoughts

Stress doesn't disappear fully and sometimes it feels that stress always can stay to you forever. But with these strategies, you can reduce stress significantly. My experience was really good while using these strategies, and although I feel overwhelmed, these strategies reduced my stress significantly. I really have nothing negative to say about the strategies. I encourage you to try them and see your yourself that stress can be reduced.

Say No to Stress

Have you ever felt so overwhelmed and stressed with assignments from courses or other things in your life such as extracurricular activities, family, jobs or other things that you just wanted to scream or just give up? I definitely have. This week in CLS I learned 2 stress reduction strategies that helped me with my stress management skills. Both of these strategies will prove to be beneficial to you as well.

Stress management is a very important topic especially since the semester is almost over and the levels of stress are at there highest at this time for college students. In order to manage your stress successfully you need to control your reactions by not allowing stress overwhelm you. To manage your stress you need to figure out what the root of your stress is. For example are you stressing over a project that you have, money, job or family? After you recognize why you are stress then you need to teach yourself to relax in stressful situations and take a step back to take a deep breath so that you can forget all of your worries. Another useful tip for handling stress is organizing your tasks and responsibilities so that you do not get feel stressed. Now that you know a few tips for managing stress I will tell you about the 2 stress reduction strategies that I used this week which were the Stress Diagram and the Stress Reduction Plan. Both of these strategies helped me to stay calm and focused this week because I have been stressed about a paper I have due in WRT 205 on Monday and an exam I have in CHE 116 on Thursday.

Stress Diagram

The Stress Diagram is an easy strategy to use that only takes a few minutes of time. This strategy helped me to realize the things the things in my life that were causing me the most amount of stress so that I could deal with them. First you list 5 or more sources of stress that are present in your life. Then you draw a circle and divide the circle into the number of sources that you have making a pie chart. The sources that are causing you the most stress should represent a larger potion of the pie chart than the other sources do. For example in my pie chart my argumentative essay takes up a big amount of space because it is due soon and it is stressing me out more my other stress sources are.

The Stress Reduction Plan is simple strategy that involves making a list of stress relieving activities that can become apart of your daily routine in college and later on in your life. After using this strategy I realized that I need to start controlling my stress by taking time to participate in activities that I like.

Stress Reduction Plan

I really enjoyed using the Stress Diagram and the Stress Reduction Plan this week because both of these strategies helped me to create a personal plan to reduce stress in my life. Furthermore I liked these strategies because they were easy to use and are adaptable so they can work for just about anyone whether the person is a college student or professional. I can apply both of these strategies not only to my academic life but also to my everyday life so I will definitely continue to use this strategies and make them a part of my everyday routine. In addition, I liked these strategies because I am a visual learner so by writing down all of my sources of stress and stress reducing activities I was able to see the main things that were causing me stress as well as some things that I could do to get rid of stress. These week I have been working really hard on my last paper for my WRT 205 paper which has been a major source of stress for me but these strategies helped me to take time away from my paper so that I could reduce my stress levels. This worked well for me because when I was extremely stressed out I was unable to think of anything to write. I found that after I took time to do an activity that I wrote down in my Stress Reduction Plan that I was able to relax then I was able to go back to writing my paper and I felt refreshed which made me think of new interesting things to write about.

I hope you will try using either the Stress Diagram or Stress Reduction Plan to help alleviate some of the stress in your daily life so that you can make the most of the last few weeks of the semester. Enjoy the nice weather and Remember that "stress is the trash of modern life - we all generate it but if you don't dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake your life" ~Danzae Pace

Seeking Motivation to End Procrastination

To be honest, I didn't really find any strategies I liked in this section, as I see procrastination and motivation to be two sides of the same coin. In other words, you need to MOTIVATE in order to not PROCRASTINATE.

As such, I found that most of the methods I used during this chapter were from other sections. The 10 minute technique can be in any one of these chapters, it's entirely universal. X-minute comes in handy when you just don't want to read a chapter of a text book.

Also, what I find helps prevent procrastination is having a plan. When working on a project, having an idea of where you want to go with it makes the project less daunting and frustrating and more engaging. The same works for preventing procrastination. If I lay out a plan ahead of time for the day, or even the rest of the week, I know that my work is structured, and that I have enough time to get everything done. Of course, I make sure to schedule in plenty of breaks. With this, I feel an urge, an obligation even, to stick to the schedule, and I know I'll get things done and I won't stress over doing them.

With a schedule in mind, and some handy techniques to help break up my work, excuses are a thing of the past.

Stopping Procrastination!

Procrastination a huge problem in our society today. We need to find ways to stray away from this disease if you will. I think people procrastinate because either we're to lazy or we just have a busy schedule and forget about somethings that we need to do. For me the reason why I procrastinate is because of my schedule not to say I just I don't just get lazy sometimes and put it off until the last minute but I have gotten better with my procrastination. I used to wait until the day my work is due to get it done but that created all sorts of problems for me because doing my work the day of cut into my off time were I would sleep before practice or in between classes. For the first procrastination tech assignment I used chunking the task which helped me out tremendously and the strategy I used this time was Excuse Busting this is also a really good strategy for me in particular.








I used this strategy for my writing 205 class because I tend to procrastinate in this class a little. I needed to type up some paragraphs about my project I'm doing in the class and I didn't want to wait until the last minute to do it all. Doing my home work was easy when it came down to it but then thats the reason i procrastinated in the first place because it was really easy to do. This strategy makes you understand the consequences to not doing my work like getting a bad homework grade that would bring my grade down the class because its a big part of the class since we don't have tests and quizzes in the class. I've gotten all of it done in a matter of 30 minutes, I just had to sit down at my computer and focus enough to get it all done. 






















Likes: I like how this strategy makes you think of all possible consequences at hand so you give your self no choice but to finish it. I also liked that once I was done with my home work it took a lot of stress off of me and I like that because I usually think about my home work while I'm in practice and it makes me unfocused sometimes. 




Dislikes: There wasn't anything I can say about the strategy that I didn't like. It made me get all my work done ahead of time.




Using the strategies I learned will make me a better person and a less stressed person. If someone with chronic procrastination were to use these strategies I feel they would become a better student.

Ways to Stop Procrastinating and do your work ON TIME!!

I don't consider myself a procrastinator. I always like to make all my work on time and with no excuses, even if I have a lot of temptations on the way. But it's never too late or too soon to have strategies just in case any situation happens. Not that I want to become a procrastinator, but I don't want any excuse or anything to stop me from doing what I am supossed to do.

Excuse Busting

Too much excuses, so little time... I might think so many times... "I have errands to do, it's laundry time, and I haven't cleaned my room in days..." And on top of that I have a paper due tomorrow. Too much excuses, right? The Excuse Busters strategy was perfect for people like me who has some school work to do and have hundreds of excuses. I basically put my excuses and made a "translation" of why I don't do my work. This really helps me to understand the way I never do my work on time.

10-Minute Technique

This is one of my favorite strategies. It's really simple to use. Do your assignments in just 10 minutes, and you will get a lot done. But I have a very simple idea that can help you dominate those ten minutes and not waste any time at all. What I would usually do, is set a timer of ten minutes at my iPhone and with that sense, I will be time pressured in order to finish my work in time, after those 10 minutes, another ten min. to have fun, then back to work, fun, work, fun... Just like that and you will get your work finished on time.

My Thoughts

Like I said before, I really, REALLY don't consider myself to be a procrastinator. But I felt that when I was using these strategies, I felt more relieved and confident that I could do all my work on time. The strategies were easy to use and forces me to take action when I am stuck on doing anything for a class. Also in the case of the 10-minute technique, the strategies really help me get motivated. Hope everybody (whom probably is more of a procrastinator than I) tries these strategies and get amazing and better results. STOP PROCRASTINATING!!!

Stop Procrastinating & Get Your Work Done

There is less than a month left of classes so now is the time to break the habit of leaving assignments until the last minute aka Procrastinating. College students everywhere struggle with procrastination including myself. One reason why many college students continue to procrastinate is because even though they stay up late writing an essay or studying for an exam if they get a good grade on their assignment they will continue to procrastinate because they have not experienced negative consequences. However if the same student does the same things but either gets low grades or does not have enough time to finish assignments they might decide to stop procrastinating and change their behavior.

I am chronic procrastinator which is especially bad because since the semester is ending I have several projects, essays and exams to complete so I can definitely not afford to be lazy and wait until the day before or the day these assignments are do to complete them. Sometimes when I have an assignment do I avoid the assignment by doing laundry or cleaning my room just so I can keep myself busy so I will have an excuse not to complete the task. Another bad habit I have is criticizing myself which prevents me from even attempting to study or write a paper because I believe that I can not do the task and I am afraid to fail. The worst thing that I do is when I lie to myself and allow myself to believe that I have everything in control when I know that this is not the case. I know that if I want to change my procrastination behavior and become a better student then I need to stop procrastinating. This week I used 2 different anti-procrastination strategies that helped me to evaluate my procrastination which were Time Wasters and Admitting the Consequences. I used both of these strategies for my WRT 205 class because I have a major 8 page essay due on April 18th that is worth 30% of my grade that I have been putting off and it is important that I do well on this last essay because it is worth alot more than the first two essays were worth. I also want/need to do well on this essay because on my previous essay which was due the Monday after Spring Break I did not do as well as I wanted to because I procrastinated and waited until the night before to write the essay instead of working on the essay during spring break like I should have.

Strategies

The 1st strategy I used was the Time Wasters strategy. Time Wasters are anything that you use to waste time that should be spent on doing an assignment. My four main Time Wasters are Facebook, texting, watching tv, and instant messaging. To use this strategy you make two columns in the left column you write your time wasters and in the right column you write the tasks that you avoided. Below is a picture of my Time Wasters chart.

Time Wasters for WRT 205

The 2nd strategy I used was the Admitting the Consequences Strategy. This strategy forced me to admit the consequences of my procrastination behavior to myself and did not allow me to continue lying to myself. To use this strategy you make three separate columns in the left column write tasks, in the middle column write consequences, and in the last column write rating. After you have created this chart in the left column jot down the tasks that you have been procrastinating about. Then in the middle column you write down the consequences you had as a result of procrastination. In the right column you rate each consequence as negative, insignificant or positive. Next you decide if your procrastinating behavior needs to change or not. The last step is to look at all of your negative consequences and make a plan to stop this consequences from occurring again.

Admitting the Consequences for WRT 205

Evaluation

Both of these strategies showed me that I need to stop procrastinating if I want to finish the semester strong because by procrastinating I am hurting myself and causing myself unnecessary stress. The Time Wasters strategy showed me that I have been wasting alot of time online and texting which causes me to stay up late at night completing assignments. After I realized this I decided to write a page of a draft then spend 20-30 minutes on facebook or texting so that way I do not let these thing distract me. When I did the Admitting the Consequences strategy I realized that all of the tasks that I was procrastinating affected my ability to do the next task. For example since I did find my 3 secondary sources for the paper until the last minute I was unable to write my draft and my annotated bibliograpghy. I liked this strategy alot because it made me rate my consequences which showed me that I do not want these consequences to happen again so I need to make a plan to prevent this from happening in the future. I am a visual learner so both of these strategies worked well for me because I was able to write down all of the tasks that I was procrastinating which allowed me to see that my behavior needs to change.

If you are having trouble with procrastination try using the two strategies I mentioned in my blog. Remember as Benjamin Franklin once said "You may delay, but time will not".

Procrastinating defines your life !

Ever wonder why you procrastinate ? Perhaps the real reason why you do so ?

According to many college students, they do it to avoid doing something that they do not want to do. Of course, it could either be homework, making appointments, study for an exam, writing a paper, going to class, and the list goes on.

What do procrastinators do to in order to avoid doing the above ?

They make excuse to avoid it ! Procrastinators deceives themselves by making a lie that they will do their work on time but in reality, they really don't. One example of a procrastinator is ME.

My Life as a Procrastinator

In my daily life as a college student, I feel like I am really irresponsible when it comes to getting academic work. Honestly, when it comes to homework or big projects to do; I procrastinate but I get the job done. I could stay up till 5 in the morning or 9 in the morning writing a paper but i will go to class and give it in on time, no matter how long i stay up. I really hate doing things at the last minute but then again, it is my fault because it's my choice to do so. If the paper is due Wednesday and i am doing nothing on a Monday, then i will just lie to myself that i have so much time and i can do it on Tuesday since i have one class. The Pro for this would be I get to have some ME time on Monday and do whatever i want but when Tuesday comes, I get hit in the face with so much CONS. Cons as in, writing the paper at the last minute, no organizers, no feedback from teachers, no revisions ! I hate this lifestyle but after a while through high school, i got used to it. Except when i came to Syracuse University. The writing teachers do not joke around when it comes to writing papers. Or when i would have to take an exam, I would have to at least study a 2 days before. For a midterm exam, perhaps a one or two weeks in advanced.

Several answers that helped me..
Several Anti-Procrastination Strategies that I found useful that Professor Blumin provided for PROCRASTINATORS was Time Wasters AND Chunking the Task.


Time Wasters

Time wasters is a perfect strategy that allows me to identify what I tend to put more of my attention to as opposed to my work. After writing down all my time waster, it makes me want to say " DAMNNNN! I waste so much time avoiding my homework just doing this. This is crazy !". I realize what are my time wasters and what not to have around me when i am doing homework. I have so much potential to finish everything on time if it wasn't for these distractions but as i realized, it was only up to me to change that. This is where Chunking the task steps in...


Chunking the Task

This is such an effective strategy that allows me to break up a whole project or a big task, into tiny little pieces ! I can easily use this fir difficult, large assignments that makes me want to avoid them. What i do is just divide the task into small sections so i can do each part everyday and when i break it down, i only put 30 or minutes into the work. When i want to start on a paper, i usually procrastinate to till the last minute. Now that i can break the task into small pieces, i can write the outline one day and then the next day, i can begin half of the paper. I used this strategy for my WGS 201 reading response which is usually 3-5 pages. Breaking it down the task usually gets me high grade, wouldn't you want that as well? This doesn't necessarily have to apply to academic work. It can apply to your personal life as well like me not cleaning my room. I am such a messy person and i rarely clean my room. It makes me feel bad when i have to bring guest over and i just kick everything to the side. Now i have this strategy that i have been using like a couple of week ago. I pick up after myself every day. Like hang up my clothes one day, clean the mirror another day. Clean the dust on my table and vacuum the carpet on a Sunday. Usually it would take me a whole day to clean my room and i would waste so much time but i don't plan on doing that anymore.


Likes and Dislikes

I really like using the Chunking the Task strategy because I use it everyday. I like using the time waster because it shows me what i have to avoid in my study environment.