Managing Your Time and Keeping a Positive Attitude
Procrastination and Time Management
Questions to Consider:
- Why do we procrastinate?
- What are the effects of procrastination?
- What strategy helps me prioritize my top tasks?
- How do I make the best use of my time when prioritizing?
To succeed at time management, you must understand some of the hurdles that may stand in your way. Procrastination is often one of the biggest. There are situations where procrastination can become a serious problem with a lot of risk. These include when it becomes a chronic habit, when there are a number of tasks to complete and little time, or when the task being avoided is very important. Because we all procrastinate from time to time, we usually do not give it much thought, let alone think about its causes or effects. Ironically, many of the psychological reasons for why we avoid a given task also keep us from using critical thinking to understand why procrastination can be extremely detrimental, and in some cases difficult to overcome.
Why Do We Procrastinate?
- Lack of energy
- Lack of focus
- Fear of failure
The Effects of Procrastination
- Loss of goals
- Loss of self-esteem
- Stress
Strategies for Managing Procrastination
- Get organized
- Put aside distractions
- Reward yourself
- Be accountable
How to Manage Time
The simplest way to manage your time is to accurately plan for how much time it will take to do each task, and then set aside that amount of time.
Strategies for Time Management
Do you know there are specific strategies to maximize your time and stay on track?
Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique involves breaking work into intervals of focused work (typically 25 minutes) followed by short breaks (usually 5 minutes). After completing four consecutive work intervals, students take a longer break (usually 15-30 minutes). This structured approach helps students maintain focus, avoid burnout, and manage their time effectively.
Step 1 - Decide on the task to be completed.
Step 2 - Set a timer to 25 minutes.
Step 3 - Work on the task until the timer rings. Try to stay truly focused the entire time.
Step 4 - Take a short 5 minute break. It may be helpful to use a timer for this duration as well.
Repeat Steps 1 through 4 four times.
Step 5 - Take a 15-30 minute break. Reflect on your sessions and evaluate your progress. Did you accomplish the tasks you set out to complete? Were there any distractions or challenges? Use this feedback to adjust your approach as needed for future sessions.
Eat the Frog
This strategy involves taking care of the biggest or most unpleasant task first and everything else will be easier after that. Although “eat the frog” sounds a bit silly, this strategy can be highly effective. First, we greatly underestimate how much worry can impact our performance. If you are continually distracted by anxiety over a task you are dreading, it can affect the task you are working on at the time. Second, not only will you have a sense of accomplishment and relief when the task you are concerned with is finished and out of the way, but other tasks will seem lighter and not as difficult.
Eisenhower Matrix
The Eisenhower Decision Matrix is a way to visually describe how to prioritize a series of tasks. It is named after the 34th President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, who used this technique to set priorities when he served as the Allied forces supreme commander during World War II.
The Eisenhower Decision Matrix is also known as the “Urgent-Important Matrix,” because it helps you prioritize tasks based on how urgent and or important they are.
| URGENT | NOT URGENT | |
|---|---|---|
| Important | High priority. These tasks are urgent and important. These tasks require immediate attention to prevent negative consequences. A science report due tomorrow is likely both urgent and important. Make time for these tasks! | Assess priority. These tasks are important, but not urgent. Perhaps you have a test next week; you’ll need to plan to study, but you still have time! |
| Not Important | Assess priority. These tasks are urgent, but not particularly important. Maybe you need to do laundry before you run out of socks. Not the end of the world, but make time to get it done! | Low priority. These tasks are not urgent or important. Consider reassessing the amount of time you spend on these tasks, especially when other urgent and/or important tasks require your attention. |
Creating Your Best Self
Questions to Consider:
- What skills do you need to promote self-efficacy?
- What strategies can you use to improve your resiliency?
- How can I shift my mindset to change how I feel?
- How can I understand my emotions?
Creating your best self is a journey of self-discovery, growth, and transformation. Creating your best self and unlocking your potential is a lifelong process that will change as you do! Understanding your strengths and values is an important foundation for this lifelong process.
Strengths are characteristics about ourselves that make us feel good about who we are, things we are good at, and parts of our personalities that make us good friends or good members of our community. Values are the things that matter to us the most, such as compassion, generosity, responsibility, and authenticity. Typically, we do the best we can to live by our values; however, sometimes we struggle.
Consider this table of strengths. What strengths do you identify with? Are there strengths you do not currently have but want to work towards? Reflect on how your strengths and values may continue to evolve throughout high school and into your adult life?
Understanding Your Mindset
Let’s first talk about your mindset. Have you ever heard someone refer to “seeing the glass half full” or “seeing the glass half empty?” This is another way of saying that, given a situation that could be interpreted multiple ways, some see the positives (half full) while others see the negatives (half empty). It is natural to move in and out of these frames of mind depending on the situation, your confidence level, the amount of stress you have in your life at the time, and so on. Setbacks and mistakes will always occur, and it’s okay and appropriate to feel negatively about them. With experience and practice, you will learn how to move on from these negative feelings and adapt your attitudes in order to promote success.
Let’s consider the possible reactions if you forgot to turn in an important assignment on time.
- Negative reaction: “I forgot to complete an assignment and now I will fail the course because this is the second time I missed submitting my work on time.”
How does this feel? What emotions are you experiencing? What is your mood?
- Now let’s reframe to a more positive reaction: “Yes, I will get a zero for that assignment. However, if I work hard on the next two assignments and get at least a B on the unit test, I could improve my final grade to at least a C+.”
A key aspect of effective and positive attitudes is the awareness and ability to take responsibility for situations in which you contributed to the outcome.
The ability to reconsider situations and find positive ways forward is a critical skill you will rely on throughout your life. Examining what you are feeling will help you to more easily navigate those emotions. By understanding your emotions and how to communicate with others about how you are feeling, you will decrease the chances of behaviors that may have negative consequences.
Expanding your emotional vocabulary will allow you to be more specific in identifying the feelings you experience. Identifying your emotions will help you to find a solution or coping strategy more quickly.
Mental Health Basics
Question to consider:
- What are some of the ways to tell if you are holding onto stress?
- How do mindfulness and gratitude encourage emotional health?
What Is Mental Health?
Mental health “includes emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, act, make choices, and relate to others. Mental health is more than the absence of a mental illness. It is essential to your overall health and quality of life. (1) According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a mental illness is a condition that affects a person’s thinking, feeling, or mood. The condition may affect a person’s ability to relate to others and function throughout the day.
A mental health condition isn’t the result of one event; it is most often the result of multiple overlapping causes. Environment, lifestyle, and genetic predisposition can all be factors in whether someone develops a mental health condition. Traumatic life events or stressful experiences may make some people more susceptible, and brain biochemistry may play a role as well. Exposure to harmful social media also plays a role and impacts your anxiety levels, self-perception, and other aspects of mental health. Mental health conditions show up in many ways. Anxiety, depression, and eating disorders are some of the most common. If you feel like your mental health is not good or your level of stress is too high, please reach out to an adult you trust.
Developing Coping Strategies
Everyone experiences stress during their lives. It is part of the human experience, and despite how healthy and well-adjusted you are, stress is inevitable. What makes a difference is how you deal with it. One of the most important things you can do is to keep perspective on your stressors. When feeling stressed, ask yourself, “on a scale of 1 to 100, how stressful a situation is this? Will I even remember this three years from now?” When facing potential stressors, the way you interpret what you’re experiencing can intensify your stress or minimize it.
There are many ways to manage stress. Take a look at some of the suggestions below that can be added to your own “toolkit” for coping with stress. As you read through the descriptions, think about the following questions:
- Which ones have you tried? You may already have one or more that work really well for you.
- Which ones do you want to try? If you have not tried any or many, consider focusing on adding one to your strategies for coping with stress.
- Which ones would be best in certain situations? It’s helpful to have different tools for different situations—for example, a calming yoga pose in your dorm room and deep breathing in the classroom.
Asking for Help
If you find that you are stuck in a low mood and are more often feeling down, hopeless, a burden to others and simply don’t find many things bring you joy, you may need help from a professional. Having your own support system is key. You may have a teacher, guidance counselor, a friend's big brother/sister, or your own sibling who has helped you through difficult situations.
Sometimes, seeking help and starting the conversation with someone can feel intimidating and even stressful. Consider these examples to help you begin:
- “I feel very alone today. Can we talk?”
- “I think I am going to fail my class. I could really use some help coming up with a plan.”
- “I said some things that I shouldn’t have to my close friend and don’t know what to do about it. What would you do if you were me?”
- “You are so good at working in groups, and I just hate it. It makes me feel so uncomfortable. Could you tell me how you do it?”
- “I have to get up in front of my class to present on a research topic, and I am very nervous. What can I do to feel less stressed about this?”
If you feel like your mental health is not good or your level of stress is too high, please reach out to an adult you trust.
Help is available all day, every day, for anyone who might be experiencing a mental health crisis. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A Crisis Text Line is also available 24/7 by texting HOME to 741741, 85258, or 686868.OK2TALK and NAMI offer online, text, and phone support.
- The Suicide Prevention Hotline can be reached by dialing 988 from any phone.
- Call the NAMI helpline at 800-950-6264, or txt NAMI to 741741.
- You can call 911 for any type of emergency at any time.
Footnotes:
1: National Institute of Mental Health. “Caring for your mental health.” https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/caring-for-your-mental-health