Monday, December 5, 2011

The best strategy for me


There have been many useful strategies that I've used throughout the semester. However, ranking priorities has been the best for me. Being able to go through any course syllabus and rank all the priorities is the best way to succeed in a course, in my opinion. This is because you can look at all the big projects, exams, or papers that you have in that particular course and rank it at the top of the priorities so you know what to focus on and get done first in the beginning of the semester. Once you get all the big assignments done, it is a lot less stress on you and it is easier to get through the rest of the semester without being so stressed all the time worrying about when your going to start working on your paper that you have due in a week, because you already finished it two weeks prior to the due date. Ranking priorities is a great strategy for everyone no matter what type of learner you are and I'm pretty sure everyone could agree with that.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Friendly Fritter Finder

The Fritter Finder has been a huge help for me this semester. It has helped me figure out my free time, visually seeing it in an organized manner. The Fritter Finder really helped me to organize my free time so that no time was wasted. I filled in my time between classes to do things such as eat my meals or go to the gym. I had a designated time on the fritter finder for when I should do my work. It was perfect way to spread my work out throughout the week giving me time to work on all my assignments. Using all the other strategies such as D's Do's and Due's and Target Planner, I got to organize my tasks while having my fritter finder to figure out when each task should be done. This was a huge help for me to stay on top of my my work. Using the Target Planner was a huge beneficial tool for doing long papers and projects. Completing projects and papers on time is something that I usually do but sometimes I do not put in enough effort to the assignments. This helped me spread my tasks out so I did all the work efficiently. I am extremely fortunate that these strategies have helped me in all my courses this semester. It really made for a smooth transition and it helped me be a more efficient student. This is a great way for me to be on top of my work and finish everything on time while doing the best work I can do.

D's Dos and Dues To Do It All


Throughout this semester I've gone through a number of time management strategies, task management strategies, procrastination strategies, stress strategies, and so many more, but of all of the strategies, I've got to to say that D's Dos and Dues did the best for me. Task and time management and procrastination all come together to be what I struggle most with. At the start of every month and week, laying down all of my assignments along with the due dates and when I will work on them really forces me to get my work done. It forces me not in a brutal or painstaking way, but it simplifies my workload to the point where I really wanna get to work and the thoughts of how long and time and energy consuming may be are no longer there.
D's Dos and Dues are is real simple because to get it done all you have to do is break out your syllabi at the start of the month and put all of the DUE dates of your major assignments on the monthly calendar and at the end of each week go to the weekly portion of your planner and on one side write down what's DUE for the week and on the other side write down what days of the week you will DO each assignment in the due column. From there just follow the schedule the best you can and if necessary, if you get a bit off schedule, just adjust your DO dates. It's very simple and ever since it was presented in CLS lecture I've been using it nearly every week, in every one of my courses along with other outside tasks, and it's benefited me every time that I've used it keeping me on task and getting all of my assignments done thoroughly.
A whole bunch of strategies have been presented in CLS and I wouldn't say that any of them are necessarily bad but different strategies work for different people, classes, and assignments but I can say that D's Dos and Dues takes the cake for me in every category whether it be the type of course, assignment, teacher, my dedication or lack thereof. I'm definitely taking this with me wherever I go beyond CLS, this one goes down in the books.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Visuals Learns Guide: Final for Stress


Hey all! Welcome to a special edition of "Visual Learners Guide", because as you all probably know by now I am a visual learner and I like to blog strategies that visual learners can use to help the, succeed in today's fast paced world of business and education. Unfortunately, it seems like this is going to be my last blog update for this season, I hope you all had a fantastic thanksgiving. Anyway, since finals are right around the corner, I thought I'd share with you some stress management strategies that I've using since the start of the school year. The two strategies I've used for a while now are Sources of Stress and the 10 Minute Vacation. I didn't use Sources of stress in any particular course, but more as a way of finding out my all my stresses in general. What I did is first, made a list of all things stressing me out this week from all aspects of my life. For example, listed my WRT 105 essay, family relationships, and cleaning my room as sources of stress in my life. Then Afterwards I made a key that detailed symbols representing High stress, Low stress, and not an issue. I applied these symbols to specific area's of stress in my life and found out the ones that were the most stressful and least stressful. I found that the areas of the most stress were grades, my essay, finding a job, and doing well on my exams, finding the right people and making my parents proud of me. These were also the things that are most important to me in being successful. I then circled the stresses that I could most easily control, for example I circled relationships with friends, family relationships, cleaning my room, laundry, and my mental health. I then I made plan that I could use to ease these stresses which entailed calling my parents once a week, talking to my friends back home once a week, cleaning my room on Fridays after class, doing laundry every Saturday afternoon, and practicing meditation every time I feel over whelmed with work. I used this strategy in WRT 105 because it seems the essay I have to write for the class is the biggest stress I have on my mind because I haven't written it yet. I chose to use this strategy because as a visual learner I like being able to view things, such as lists. Overall I found this strategy very effective because I could see all the stresses that were causing my problems was very helpful, it made me feel less stressed out to see what were my biggest stresses, and the ones I could make a plan for and control. It was a great stress reliever. I think if I could change anything, I could make a list and attach images of what they are, or a schedule of how I would deal with them. I think that would be pretty helpful.

Another strategy that I used this week was the 10 Minute Vacation. I used this strategy to relax and relieve my stress from performing in my DRA 105 acting class. What I did for the 10 vacation is I surfed YouTube to find funny or interesting videos. I ended up coming across a 10-minute compilation fail video, which is a bunch of funny videos of people failing stunts. It gave me a pretty good laugh before class and enabled to forget about performing and just relax. I ended up feeling very clam and relaxed before class, as if I had taken a vacation, a 10 minute one at that. So, the strategy turned out to be very effective for me, it gave me something visual to enjoy while I waited to go to class. Since I'm a visual learner, it was especially nice for me to view something that made me laugh and feel better abut myself. I originally chose this strategy because I needed a quick way to relieve my stress, and the 10-minute vacation was sounded like the perfect combination of stress relief and visual comprehension. I don't think I would change much of anything besides maybe the length, maybe if you have more time, make it a 20-minute vacation instead of 10 minute.

Anyway, thanks for being such a great audience, hope you all have a wonderful winter break!