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!

Drive away stress by using STRESS DIAGRAM and 5-MINUTE ESCAPE

Hey, girls. Hope right now you all start enjoy your wonderful holiday with your family or your friends!

For this week, I used Stress Diagram and 5-Minute Escape in all of my courses because basically, most of my stress comes from my academic. Exams, homework, discussions are totally make me exhausted everyday. Plus I need to handle different kinds of relationship problems, homelessness or health problems.

Let me talk about Stress Diagram first. I love this strategy maybe because I am major in BS Economics, I love using data and graphs to analyze problems. And this strategy is exactly my type.

Here is my list for the origins of my stress.

As you can tell from the chart, Exams, friendship (especially the relationship between my roommate and I )and health are my three big headache problems.

I made a pie chart based on this chart. Since I am a visual learner, I use different colors, each one repressed one stress.

Now, I have a very clear idea where my stress comes from. The good news is during this week, I got a very good grade in my ECN exam and I solved my problem with my roommate under the help of my RA.So I am not that kind of under huge stress any more.

The second strategy I tried is 5-Minute Escape. Believe it or not, I used this strategy before I came here when I was in high school. But this time, I added something new in it.

I took some pictures on compass everyday, which were all view picture and nobody in pictures. Here are some of them.

These are all normal trees, buildings on campus. But I find they are actually very beautiful. I looked at them without thinking anything, just let my brain take a 5-minute break. At the same time, I take deep breath again and again, I play music, which sang by Aoi Teshima. Her voice always make me easy and quite. After 5 minutes, I feel like I am refresh again!

Hope you like my picture, and try to listen to Aoi Teshima!

Stress Diagram and 5-Minute Escape!

Hello girls!

I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving Break. Go eat lots of turkey and pie and have fun spending time with family!

So for this week's tech assignment, I decided to use the Stress Diagram and the 5-Minute Escape as stress management strategies. These two techniques can apply to all of my courses. The 5-Minute Escape is great to use whenever you are feeling stressed out about something. It helps alleviate your stress. The Stress Diagram is a good tool to use to figure out what it is that is causing your stress.

The Stress Diagram is basically a breakdown of the sources of stress that you're experiencing. I wanted to figure out what was causing my stress, which would help me determine on my own how to handle it. First, I made a list of these sources that have been lately causing me stress in order from most stressful to least stressful.

Here is my list of sources:

1. Grades
2. Spending Money
3. Routine Chores
4. Relationships
5. Health

Then, I incorporated all of these sources into a pie chart with each section representing the relative amount of stress it has on my life.

Here is my pie chart:


Since I am a visual learner, this pie chart really helped me recognize what sources were giving me the most stress. For me, grades, chores, and managing money have been the most stressful sources. Now, I understand what is causing me stress and I can find ways to lessen my stress.

For my second strategy, I used the 5-Minute Escape. This is a stress-relieving technique, which incorporates meditation and breathing. I am familiar with meditation considering the fact that I am taking a yoga course. I liked this strategy a lot because it effectively made me feel relaxed and relieved from stress in only a few minutes.

Since I don't have documentation of this technique, I'll just explain the steps of doing this strategy.

First, I made sure that I was in a quiet space. I did this alone in my dorm room in the middle of the day after class, when not many people were around to disrupt me. I closed my eyes and took a couple deep breaths. Then I rolled my shoulders backwards and forwards a couple times, massaged my temples and relaxed my jaw, moved my head in a circular motion, massaged my trapezius muscle, took a few more breaths, then opened my eyes.

This technique was very effective in that it helped clear my head of all the negative and stressful events that were occurring in my life. Since I am also a kinesthetic learner, this technique was really effective in actually relieving me of stress. I recommend using this technique before a test, after class, and any other time when you are feeling stressed.

Both of these stress management techniques are helpful in that the Stress Diagram helps you determine the causes of your stress while the 5-Minute Escape relaxes and alleviates your stress.

Stress Diagram & 5-Minute Escape

Hello everyone! How ready are you for fall break? I am SO ready. Can't wait to relax and stop stressing. Speaking of stressing... this week was all about finding out how you stress, why you stress, and how you can preventstress from happening.

This week I used the stress diagram to figure out what areas of life are stressing me out the most. I'm a visual learner and happen to love pie charts, so this was right up my alley! My GPA is my biggest stressor; it is what is going to determine whether I can transfer into the major I want. Therefore, my GPA is always on my mind. Every single assignment that I turn in, I think... what is this going to do to my GPA? It's a daily stressor and can become quite a pain.

Next up is my job. I work at the Daily Orange as an assistant photo editor. Lately, I've been extra busy because of my job. Our head photo editor quit recently and since then it has been up to me and three other assistants to manage the photo department of the paper. Phew.. sometimes I'm working until 2am. I absolutely love my job, but with all the other work I have to do, it can really build up stress.

Lastly is my social life. Between school work and my job, I try to keep a good balance with my social life. With relationships and friends, things can sometimes get stressful. Overall, it's not too big of a stressor.

Now that I had determined what is stressing me out, it was time to find a way to relax. This is where the 5-minute escape comes in. I decided to buy a new, relaxing album that I could just sit down and listen to. It's truly a "me-time" album! It's called "The Errant Charm" by Vetiver.

Time Wasters & Excuse Busting

Hello all, it's time to talk about procrastination. Just saying the word makes me uneasy! We all do it, and we all know how it feels to procrastinate; not good, right? Right. So, this week we're going to talk about two strategies that will help you kick this bad habit.

First, *Time Wasters* is a great way to physically lay out exactly what kind of things you are doing that is wasting your time (if you're a visual learner like I am, this is perfect). Showing exactly what you do to procrastinate an assignment or studying you have to get done actually helps you realize that it's time to start working and stop messing around. I used this strategy for my CLS, Spanish, Transmedia, and Photo classes. Here is my time waster chart:

I found this strategy effective in that it showed me that sometimes I don't even start my projects, and that can really build up and cause a lot of trouble in the future. Why add the stress when you can go on facebook after work is done?

On to my next strategy: Excuse Busting. This strategy is quite similar to the previous, except instead of showing what you do to procrastinate, this strategy shows you why you procrastinate (what are your excuses?!). Here is my excuse buster chart:

This strategy really translates what you're thinking in your head when you choose to procrastinate. For me, it made me feel quite silly! The strategy almost forces you to ask yourself, wait.. why do I actually procrastinate? Loved it.

Time Wasters and Admitting the Consequences

Hey everyone! I hope you all have had a great weekend!

This week, I decided to use Time Wasters and Admitting the Consequences as procrastination strategies and applied them in all of my courses. Both of these strategies helped me straighten out my priorities and realize when and how I procrastinate.

For Time Wasters, I created a chart showing the things that are the cause of my procrastination and listed the tasks that I avoid. Since I am a visual learner, this chart helped me figure out what were the sources of my distractions. These "time wasters" can be easily avoided. For example, the internet and social networking sites like Facebook are probably the number one cause for my procrastination. But by blocking and disconnecting myself from the internet, I can get my work done without distraction. I get distracted very easily and I have a short attention span so by eliminating the distraction, I can focus on my work better.

Here is my Time Wasters chart:


Now for the Admitting the Consequences strategy, I created another chart outlining the tasks that I avoid, the consequences for not completing those tasks, and the rating of each consequence. This helped me realize what the consequences would be if I did not complete a task. I can now plan out what I need to do in order to eliminate these distractions, therefore avoiding these consequences.

Here is my Admitting the Consequences chart:



I liked using these two procrastination strategies because they helped me acknowledge the reasons for my procrastinating and the consequences for not doing my work. Now I can successfully do my work without procrastinating as much because I'm aware of the consequences.

Chunking the Task and Time Wasters

Hello, girls! Hope you all had a great weekend! I saw a good friend of mine perform with The Mandarins a capella group last night, and they were amazing! If you get the chance to see them perform, take it!

This week for procrastination themed blog, I chose to use both the Time Wasters and Chunking the Task strategies. Both these strategies involved more than one of my classes, and they were both wicked helpful!

Starting with Time Wasters. Throughout high school, I was a grade A time waster myself. I could procrastinate like nobody's business, always finding something that I could do instead of my homework. Well, now that I'm in college, that really needs to change. I am definitely getting better, but I still need some work to complete my transformation from slacker to star student. I've always found it difficult to find the motivation to work on something that I'm not passionate about. Luckily, most of my classes are theatre-based, so I am very passionate about them. For other classes, it can sometimes be hard to get myself to start working. I'll clean my room, do laundry, go on Facebook and other sites, all to avoid doing my work. Here's my chart I used for my Time Wasters!

This strategy really helped me to realize that I waste much more time than I should, just in my every day activities. For example, Netflix can really mess up my work schedule. Who knew there were so many episodes of 30 Rock and That 70's Show? You all know at this point that I am a kinesthetic learner, so I handwrote my strategies again, just to drill them as much as possible!

Now onto Chunking the Task! This strategy was so helpful, I don't think I can find words to convey just how much it helped me. By taking the amount of work I have to do, and "chunking" it into separate pieces, I feel so much less stressed out. Here's the chart I used!

I am in love with this strategy, and I know that now I have fully experience just how helpful it is in finishing my work, I will use it every week!

See you all tomorrow!

Time waster and My Poem Reads Dandy

Hi, all! How was your weekend? Thanksgiving is coming and it seems everybody is waiting for it!!

This week, I used Time Wasters to trace the reasons for procrastination and think about what I can do eliminate the bad effects. Procrastination is my really big problem recently and I really need a anti-procastination strategy right now. In order to know whether Time Wasters is beneficial for me, I tried this strategy this week.

After listing down the time wasters and avoided tasks for me, I found in most of the situation I procrastinated is because I felt overwhelmed or I did not finish what I should do before and I began to have those interruptions. This strategy helps me to realize what are the causes of my procrastination so I decided to think about how I can do in order to anti-procastinate. So the other anti-procrastination strategies came to my mind, why not use 10-minute strategy and chunking the tasks together after Time Waster? I can chunk those long and boring tasks into small, achievable and productive assignments and then assign 10 minute for each one. This strategy is effective for me and it helps me to define my personal reasons for procrastination and come up with a personal solution with procrastination.

The second strategy I applied this week is My Poem Reads Dandy, another reading strategy described in the textbook. I used this strategy for my accounting class, because the professor covered a lot materials in the class and I thought I could not handle them very effectively and I have a conceptual quiz next week so I have to review this chapter this week, and another reason I chose this strategy is I am a kinesthetic learner and I need to do something in order to learn it very well.

Measure

I had 40 pages to read and I could do 10 pages at a time so I assign the whole task into four times.

Preview

I previewed the chapter by looking at the summary and organization and then I got a overview of this chapter.

Read

When I read the chapter each time, I highlighted the concepts I need to remember in order to create my review notes in the next step.

Draw

I did not draw a graphic organizer as it was described because I think I am not a good artist and it takes more time to think before drawing. Because I am a linear learner so I used a more simple and clear way to summarize those concepts and conclude their relationships in this chapter. Here is what I do:

It is beneficial for me to use this strategy this week and I found another way to review the materials and because it combines with chucking the tasks and study aids so it is helpful for me to finish reading the whole chapter and prepare for next quiz.

Time Wasters and 24-Hour Rule

Hi, girls! How is your weekend? Hope you liked the sunny day today!( Yesterday was so bad, so cold!)

For this week, I chose to use Time Wasters and 24-hour Rule. Actually, they are both strategies for saving time and make sure finishing assignments before due dates. I applied them in all of my courses.

Let me talk about TIME WASTERS first. I always complain that I have so little time to do so much homework. I wish I could have 30 hours a day. But everybody has 24 hours everyday, some people can use their time well, they can do much more things than what I can do in one day. So I used Time Wasters. Here is my chart.

I listed 6 "thieves" who steals my time all the day. Since I am a visual learner, I use one color for one reason. From the chart, I can clearly see that Internet chat tools and Interruptions are the "biggest thieves" for my time. I almost waste 2 hours everyday on them. Social life is amazing, but at the same time, it wastes me a lot of time. As a result, I have to sacrifice my sleeping time for homework. I FIND THAT ALL THE TIME-WASTE CAUSES ARE ALL BECAUSE I AM ATTRACTED BY OTHER STUFFS INSTEAD OF HOMEWORK, SO I WASTE A LOT OF TIME!

In order to find some ways to solve my time-waste problem, I figure out some solutions for helping myself.

So in general, I choose to keep myself from any kinds of interruptions when I want to study. I turn off my wifi search on my computer, I set my phone in silent model and put it in my drawer. I study in quiet places and I always spend friends after I finish my homework.

It is really worked for me to save time. I can go to bed every day before 12 right now and I have energy for my morning classes.

TO BE HONEST, SAVING TIME IS A METHOD OF SELF-CONTROL. If you want to save time, if you do not want to be disturbed, you will find some ways to save your time when you do your home.

Now I will talk about my 24-HOUR RULE. I made a new chart about what should I finish everyday.

I have three columns, one for Due Dates, my plans before and my plan nowadays. I found that because I tried to pretend the due days one day ahead, I was pressed for time. But amazingly, I could do more by obeying my new plan. Sometimes it is not that we do not have enough time for finishing, it is because we always want to work on them on the last time right before due time.

But by using 24-Hours Rule, I can finish my assignments one day earlier than usual and even have some time to proof them again.

I love using these two strategies. They all help me by push me save time during daily life. I split my assignment into 2-3 days. I have enough time think about my assignment more in detail in order to improve the quality of my assignments. But anyway, self-control is of importance in saving time. If I do not have the desire for saving time, so no matter what kind of good strategy I use, it will never be work.

To motivate yourself, apply Exploring rewards and Academic Fears!

Hi, girls. How was your weekend?

We are already in the mid of the semester and in order to improve my academic performance in courses for the rest of this semester, I tried the some strategies this week to find my motivation to change.

I used exploring rewards for accounting course. I categorized the rewards and changed the strategy to write down more than one item under no-cost and low-cost rewards because I like changes and I have more options when I want to reward myself, especially for no-cost rewards, I think I need to write down as much as possible, because I will not think it less valuable becasue it costs nothing.

I applied academic fears on my art history class, because I am kinesthetic learner, I listed down the most difficult things for this course, and I found the first three affects my grades on exam and I should combine the strategies I learned in CLS class to eliminate my fears. For the paper, I chose paper of this course as the paper experiment so I believe if I do it according to the paper experiment's requirement, I will be fine.

Because thanksgiving is coming and all my friends are talking about travel plans so I found myself really eager for the holiday and with no motivation to study at all these days. After doing these two strategies this week, I found myself more motivated to plan and study for the exams coming next week for these two course. That is so great and I am happy we learn that before my exams!

Motivate yourself! Academic Fears & Exploring Rewards

Hello again, what a beautiful weekend right? This rare, sunny weather kept me feeling great all weekend, which ties in with this weeks topic: motivation! It's all about how you feel in your academic endeavors, where you want to go in life, and how you will get there.

First let's talk about academic fears. This is a great chart to really layout those fears that you sometimes get during the semester. By using this chart you can write them down and physically see (good for me since I'm a visual learner) the absolute worst outcome (and the best!), which for me helped me calm down a bit and made me realize it's not all that bad. This chart generally works with the majority of my classes, which are art studio classes. Sometimes I have a hard time staying creative, or remembering all the due dates of my many projects. This chart helped me figure out what could possibly happen and the actions needed to better the outcome.

Secondly, I tried exploring rewards. This is also a good chart to lay out different things that will keep you motivated to stay on top of your academics. I agree with Shuyuan when she said the no-cost rewards are the most valuable to her. These mean the most to me and have the greatest effect on my motivation.

Motivation: Academic Fears and Exploring Rewards

Hey girls! I hope you're weekend has been great so far!

So this week, I use Academic Fears in my SPA 102 class because it is one of my hardest courses. I also used the Exploring Rewards strategy for all my courses. I thought that these motivational strategies would be a great way for me to keep myself motivated for doing well in my courses.

For Academic Fears, I created a chart explaining what I was most fearful of, the worst and best outcomes, and the actions I needed to take in order to succeed in the course. My worst fear for SPA 102 was not understanding the material. Not understanding the material could lead me to failing the class, which is not good. In order to understand the material, I need to be paying full attention during class and reading the textbook thoroughly. This strategy helped me realize the consequences from not doing well in this course.

Here is my Academic Fears Chart for SPA 102:



For all my courses, I created an Exploring Rewards chart that includes no-cost, low-cost, and high-cost rewards that can be used to influence my motivation. Some rewards are more powerful than others and with this chart I have discovered that my low-cost rewards actually outweigh my high-cost rewards. In terms of expense, it doesn't cost anything to feel confident and to get into Newhouse. I much rather prefer making my parents proud and transferring into Newhouse than buying a new cool cell phone.

Here is my Exploring Rewards chart:



I have found that what motivates me is both external and internal. I want to feel successful and happy while receiving approval from my family.

Since I'm a visual learner, I liked how both of these motivation strategies helped me clearly recognize what motivates me and how I can improve my motivation.

Academic Fears and Exploring Rewards in DRA 115

Hey girls! Hope you all are having a nice weekend, and that you enjoyed your extra hour of sleep! I know I did :)

For this week's Tech assignment, I decided to apply Academic Fears and Exploring Rewards to my Intro to Theatre class. In this class, we have a lot of reading to do (sometimes two plays a week, AND we write papers on every play we read), and it can get overwhelming. When I get overwhelmed, it's very easy for me to just throw in the towel and say I won't do it. These strategies will help me to get rid of that unhelpful attitude, and motivate me to be the most efficient student I can be.

This is the chart I made for my Academic Fears strategy! As you all know by now, I find writing things out by hand much more helpful (Kinesthetic Learner), so I wrote mine out, using fun colors.

Intro to Theatre is a required course for all freshman drama students, including actors, MTs, stage managers and design/tech students. It's a really important class to the major, and if I fail it (which I am not in danger of doing, but it's still a scary prospect), it will probably harm my chances of being able to study abroad in London at the Globe Theater the first semester of my junior year, which is really important to me. This strategy was great for laying out all of my fears about the course, and looking at it made the course seem easier, because I know what I can do to avoid my Worst Outcome coming true!

Next, I used the Exploring Rewards strategy, also in my Intro to Theatre Class. Again, I wrote it out in pen and crayon because it helps me to actually physically write things out, as opposed to typing them. Here's my chart for my Exploring Rewards!

I feel like my rewards I set for myself are motivating, and they will give me the extra push I need to succeed in my class!

The strategies for this week were great, and very useful! I feel more motivated already :) See you girls tomorrow!

Motivation and Rewards!

Hello, girls! Cold Friday night, isn't it?

I have suffered from my neck pain for the whole week and I went to see the doctor today. I cannot reading or doing my homework for a long time every time. So for this week's blog, I will post my words and chats first. If I still have time during the weekend and my neck won't torture me any more, comic will be back.

This week, our topic is about MOTIVATION. I used Academic Fears on my ECN2O3 class and Exploring Rewards on all my courses. ( Rewards are always the same no matter what kind of courses you take).

The reason why I care about my ECN203 class so much is because Economics is my major. If I fail in this course, that's will be a totally tragedy for me. I even tried all the strategies l learned from CLS 105 on my ECN203 classes merely in the purpose of gaining better grades in this course. I really afraid of being failure in my ECN course.

Here is my chart for Academic Fears.

Since I am a visual learner, I use different colors to mark different stuffs. The worst thing that will happen in my academic is I get an F at the end of this semester. This is the signal that I won't pass the course. Since ECN 203 is the most basic course among the whole ECN courses. I really do not know what am I supposed to do in the following years for ECN courses. It's my major and I can't change my major, so I have no choices but to be successful.

In order to achieve the goal, I need to spend more time than other students on reviewing and organizing notes, talking with TAs and my professor, and even read more Economics books. To be honest, Academic fear is the biggest motivation for me on my ECN 203 .

And for my Exploring Rewards, I also make a chart for this. Here it comes.

Actually, for me, No-cost rewards are more important and valuable. Since for those things that can be purchased by money, they also do bring happiness to me. But they just kind of short-run rewards. However, No-cost rewards can give me the sense of accomplishment, a good impression of me among my friends and professors. These non-purchaseable and non-visable rewards are always my main motivation for my academic performances since my childhood until nowadays.

So, in my opinion, internal motivations are more useful and effectively than external motivations. What do you think about it?