Exploring rewards and Academic Fears!

Hi, all!

This week, I had so many problems with my assignments and homework because I almost did nothing with school during the thanksgiving break. When I came back from the break, I realized how big the problem was. But the break gave me so much time and I just relax myself, plus the winter break is just three weeks away, I do not even want to study for any class. So I decided to use Academic Fears and Exploring Reward to motivate myself to study.

For Academic Fears, I used it on my economic class because the exam is one week away from this week, and I found I remember little stuff from the class and I was so anxious about the exam. Thus I figured out the worst and best outcomes, and using Chunking the task and 20 minute test prep in order to review for the exam on next Thursday. Besides, I created a study group for extra questions. Because I am a kinesthetic learner, I used the study group to discuss the question and review for the test.

I found this works for me and I am on the way for review, and I finished reviewing for 3 topics. I am so proud of myself for this week!

The second strategy I use this week is Exploring Rewards because as I said, I have no desire to study this week, so I decided to revisit this strategy and combine all the rewards I found it useful to motivate me to study.

This helps me to motivate myself when I found I had no desire to study and I wanted to do the things waste my time.I found the all the rewards motivates me and I love all of them working together because all of them are helpful for me to focus on my study and to prepare for next economic exam, too.

5 Minute Escape & Chunking the Task

Well it's been one roller coaster ride of a semester right?! I decided to use two strategies that simply having been going hand in hand with one another for the last two weeks of the semester. With so many projects coming to a close for me, I could not think of two better strategies to use than Chunking the Task and the 5 Minute Escape.

Chunking the Task was absolutely perfect for the Major/Career Exploration project. In fact, if you take a close look at the directions for the proposal part of the project, it actually helps you chunk the task right then and there! I was thrilled to see this. I was able to take each step that I wanted to complete for the project and break it up in terms of a date. When I took a step back and looked at it, I felt more relieved. I had specific dates laid out for each step, with a few days in between. Looking back on the project, I feel like this reduced my stress immensely. Here is part of my proposal:

I also used Chunking the Task for finishing up my most recent project for my ceramics class. My last project was a self portrait project. It's really time consuming because I chose to build three pieces for the entire project. I was able to chunk down each piece into separate dates so that I could finish the entire project in a timely, stress-free manner.

The next step in this stress reduction process is the 5 Minute Escape! How can you not love the 5 Minute Escape? It's all about breathing. First, you chunk your tasks, take a look at what you will accomplish and now it's time to relax. Follow the steps in the 5 Minute Escape and you will soon feel a weight lift off your shoulders (or at least I do!). Picture yourself here:

Ranking Priorities and 20-Minute Test Prep

Hey girls! This is the last blog post and I'm going to miss reading everybody's posts. This semester has gone by so fast! It's been tough but great at the same time!

So for my last blog post, I decided to use the two strategies that work best for me and that I will continue to use throughout the year: Ranking Priorities and 20-Minute Test Prep.

Ranking Priorities is a great problem solving strategy that helps me organize my study schedule and prioritize my tasks. Since finals are coming up, I have been feeling stressed and needed a way to help me organize when to complete tasks. With Ranking Priorities, I now know what tasks are most important and are needed to be completed first.

For this week, I used this strategy in all of my classes. Since I am a visual learner, I compiled a list of tasks that I needed to complete in a chart. Then I ranked in order what tasks I needed to complete from absolutely essential to optional. Most of the tasks were absolutely essential, so I marked which ones needed to be completed first based upon due dates.

Here is my Ranking Priorities chart:


For my second strategy, I used the 20-Minute Test Prep for my PSY 205 class. I have a final exam in this class very soon so after each class this week, I made 10 charts which include a list of important terms that can be quite confusing. These charts will help me understand and differentiate the terminology. There are a lot of different types of disorders that we are covering in this unit and I thought it would make it easier to differentiate them by making a chart. As I stated before, I am a visual learner so making a chart really helps me organize my work.

Here is one of my 20 Minute Test Prep charts:



This technique was very effective in that it helped me prepare for my exam while not making me feel overwhelmed because I would only study in 20 minute intervals. I really like using this strategy and will continue to use it in all of my future courses.

I really loved working with you girls this semester and I wish you all good luck on your finals! Hope everyone has a great break as well!

5 Minute Escape and Exploring Rewards

Hi girls! This is our last blog post! I'll miss reading all of your work on here, but I'm glad to have almost completed the course.

For this final blog post, I chose to use the strategies that have been really helpful to me this week as I prepare for the end of the semester: 5 Minute Escape and Exploring Rewards.

Let's start with the 5 Minute Escape. I love this strategy, plain and simple. I have a lot of huge papers due this week, so I have been working non-stop all weekend. I even forgot to eat anything until 3:00pm yesterday! It's been crazy, so I definitely need to stop once and a while and breathe. What I like to do is find a peaceful song (I like to use Audrey Hepburn singing "Moon River" from Breakfast at Tiffany's), and get into the yoga pose, Child's Pose. Here's a picture of someone in Child's Pose, just in case you want to try it, but don't know what the pose is:
I've heard that spending 5 minutes in Child's pose is the equivalent of taking a 20 minute nap. I find it to be very restful and once I'm done with that, I feel ready to start working again.

Now let's move on to Exploring Rewards. As I said earlier, this weekend has been insane with work. I've never written so much in my life! This is a special chart that I made of rewards just for this weekend.
So far, it's been working out nicely! I've been rewarding myself as I go along, and I've been getting lots of work done. I have more work than is on this chart, but these are the most important assignments. I know I will continue to use these strategies throughout my time here at SU.

I've really enjoyed working with you all on this blog, and I'm sad to see it go! I wish you all good luck on your finals, and hope you all have a wonderful break! See you in class on Monday (last week of classes, yay!)

Say goodbye by using Do&Due and Chunk the task

Hey, everybody. How is your weekend? It seems that everyone is working hard on finals. Unfortunately, I am having a bad fever right now maybe because of the fire alarm in Day 2 days ago.

Anyway, for this week, I choose to use DO& DUE and CHUNK THE TASK again because I do love them and I continue to use them for the whole semester. They help me to study so productively and I always pretend my due dates at least 2 days before the real due dates. So when I finish my assignments on time by following my planner, I am so proud of myself. What's more surprising is that nowadays, I can always find some free time for myself so that I can do whatever I like to do in order to relax myself. The two strategies make my college life much more earlier and colorful, but still promise high grades.

Different from what I did before, I combine DO&DUE and CHUNK THE TASK together in one chart this week.

Here is the chart.

Especially for CHUNK THE TASK, I used it for my Major/Career exploration and my ECN Reading paper. I chunk my Major/Career exploration in two parts in this week. On Monday, after I interviewed Dr. Blumin, I finished my reflection report. And on Wednesday, I checked all the materials I put in my folder to make sure I didn't miss anything. So that on Thursday, I handed in and I got 5 bonus points. And for my ECN 203 Reading report, It's due next Wednesday. But I choose to spend 3 days to finish it within this week and handed in it on Friday. As a result, starts from this weekend, I can pay all my attention on reviewing for finals without worrying about my homework.

Right now, I am confident with my finals because everything is on my plan except my terrible and annoying fever. I know I should draw the last comics for you, but I really feel dizzy right now. In order to make up it, I post my favorite squirrel pictures which I took in Upenn for you, wish it can make you smile!

I am really sorry I cannot draw comics for this week. Hope you could understand.

A Day at a Time and Five-minute Escape

Hello, all! During the Thanksgiving break, I hope everybody do whatever you want and enjoy the time with your family and friends!

For this week stress management strategies, I used A Day at a Time and Five-minute Escape and I found both strategy could help me when I was stressed out before the break and I guess I will use them in the future.

For A Day at a Time, I wrote down no more than five things which drives me crazy before I go to bed every night and crossed out the things I have solved in order to reduce stress. I wrote it because I am a kinesthetic and linear learner and writing things down and deleting the finished tasks helps me to feel more accomplished and productive. As you can see, there are some items stay in my list more than two days, for example, the paper, which is a big problem for me, but finally on Wednesday night, I eliminated the stress for paper and I felt very very fantastic because of it. Here are all the lists I did for this week:

I also used five-minute escape this week, which is helpful for me to get rid of the stresses in the real life. I tried meditation this semester under the influence of a friend and she took a class on how to reduce the stress and gave me the CD they used in the class, which contains a lot of meditation music and I found it helpful when I can not focus sometimes.

Both of the strategies work for me when I feel stressed out and I will choose A day at a Time when I am overwhelmed and have a lot of things to do, because it teaches me to get more organized in my life.

Stress Diagram and 5-Minute Escape

Hi girls! Happy Thanksgiving! I am so excited for the break. I am ready to just be with my family and friends back home and sleep!

And speaking of sleep, it's something I have a hard time doing when I am STRESSED! Which is why this week's Tech assignment came at a perfect time! This week I chose to use the Stress Diagram and 5-Minute Escape strategies. Here's how they went for me!

Let's start with the Stress Diagram. I didn't find this particular strategy as helpful as I did the 5-Minute Escape, because I already had a good handle on what exactly was stressing me out. I know that the readings I have for my Intro to Theatre class give me the most grief, and I know that finances give me a little anxiety as well. However, it was beneficial to be able to see an overview of what was making me the most stressed. Here's the chart I made:
I didn't draw it by hand, shocking! I actually didn't trust myself to draw a nice circle...I have no visual art skills. So, overall, this was a good strategy, but I feel like it didn't help me as much as I anticipated it would.

Next, let's talk about the 5-Minute Escape! Now, I loved this strategy. I try to do a meditation every day, and it's great to know that it actually is proven to be beneficial and it's not just my mind playing tricks with me! When I meditate, I use the free meditations provided online by Gabrielle Bernstein, a graduate of the SU Drama department who is now a life-coach and spiritual guide. It sounds kind of fluffy and stupid, but she helps me relax so much! I definitely recommend using her free meditations. Here's the link if you want to give it a try!
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gabrielle-bernstein/id341081292

Have a great break, everyone! I look forward to seeing you all refreshed and well rested in a week!