Time and Stress Management

Time time time, wheres all the time gone?!

I love life, and I try hard to manage my time well, but sometimes things can get a little crazy! I'm sure everyone has had a time in their life when they wish they could just press a button and have things done for them. But thats not how it works I guess...

Time management is a skill that is probably sooo useful! I wish I could say I'm skilled in time management but that would be a huge lie! I'm horrible at time management... I'm so forgetful sometimes it's scary.

Luckily our lecture in Student Development was about Time Management!

What did I learn? Well, let me tell you.

Time Management and Stress often go hand in hand. If you have good time management, the less likely you are to be stressed out last minute about something. We call things that stress us out "stressors." Some of my stressors are exams, a dirty room, assignments, lack of sleep, etc... So, when unavoidable stress comes along with the hectic life of a freshmen college student, what should I do?! Well, we learned about some awesome stress coping skills from our lecturer.

In order to know how to cope with stress it's important to be aware of you're negative stress symptoms. For instance, when I get stressed out, I often slow down and act like whatever I'm stressing out about doesn't really matter. Hahaha, kind of weird, but I think I do that because I'm used to watching my siblings stress out and how it gets everyone up tight and I've never wanted to be like that so I do the extreme opposite til' I explode. So I know when I'm slowing down and pretending like things don't care, I'm pretty stinking stressed out.

After I realize how stressed out I am, it's important to apply stress reducing skills. One we learned about that I like was doing something constructive. Getting something accomplished. It makes sense because usually my stress comes from homework load, so if I just sit down and get some homework done, I won't be as stressed out. Ya dig!?

But! To avoid stress attacks altogether, it's important to have good time management.

Good time management starts with determining the value of things you have to do. For example, checking my facebook has a low value cause it's not important or urgent, whereas studying for an upcoming exam has a higher value because it's both important and urgent.

After determining the value of the things I'm doing I should try to evaluate my goals and objectives. In determining my goals and objectives, I will be able to fully organize and prioritize the things I have to do. The values they have will help me take prioritize them from most to least important.

Anyways, I kind of rambled, but basically I'm just working through this plan to master my time management and hopefully reduce my stress. My leadership role isn't very stressful, but life certainly is, and I feel like when I know I can take the time to go serve I am doing well as far as stress goes. Cause if I'm maxed out, then I wouldn't want to go serve at all. So, to apply this principle, I'm really going to try to reevaluate what I have going and prioritize those things that are important. Then I'll take action and keep my stress down so that when I go to volunteer in my leadership position, I'm not worrying about other things.

That way I can serve full heartedly!