Time Wasters

The week before Thanksgiving break I have an intense amount of school work to complete and make up. Over the course of last week I was extremely sick and wasn't able to go to most of my classes. I am still making up all the work that was due plus the new information that I need to learn and complete.

For Tech Assignment #8 I used two strategies, Time Wasters and Time Strategies. For the time wasters, I put down all the things that help make me unaccomplished with my school work and other important work that I need to finish. After I wrote up all the things that helped waste my time when trying to accomplish school work I made up a fritter finder that helped determine what time I had available between class and practice so I could sit down and study. After completely my fritter finder scheduled realistic amounts of time for doing assignment and studying. For me, I can't tell myself that I am going to sit down and study from 5-10 at night, that is just not possible for my brain to focus for that long so I decided to use 20 minute STUDY/TEST prep to help keep me focused.

For the 20 minute STUDY/TEST prep I started out with my EAR101 exam and wrote down note cards for all the important terms that I need to remember for my next exams. After the 20 minutes were up I moved on to creating my outline for ANT273 Christianity Doctrine that is due on the 20th. After my 20 minutes were up for that I went back to EAR101 and studied my flashcard for another 20 minutes. When those 20 minutes were up I went back to ANT273, looked at what I had finished on my outline and started to begin writing my introduction paragraph for my rough draft. I went back and forth for 20 minutes in these two topics until my rough draft for ANT273 was completed.

Working with these two strategies and trying to make adaptations for them were at first somewhat difficult because I have trouble with trying to stay focused. Putting down my time wasters and then putting down what my avoided tasks are next to them showed me that I need to seriously reevaluate my priorities and this tech assignment was a start to fixing that. With doing the 20 minutes study/test prep, I was too busy going back and forth between two courses that I forgot about the outside world and just focused on my studies.

The two strategies I used this week were 10 minute technique and time wasters. I used time wasters for all the major assignments I had due this week and I used 10 minute technique for my PHI 192 paper. I used these two strategies so I could help myself stay focused and on task. They helped me recognize the ways I'm not using my time effectively. I used 10 minute technique for my PHI 192 paper because i usually have trouble sitting down for a long period of time and writing a paper. 10 minute technique helped me because I could sit down and write for 10 minutes only and after that 10 minutes was up i could take a quick break and do other work. Then I would go back to it after i took a break or got other things done. I wouldn't only sit down for 10 minutes, sometimes 10 minutes turned into a half an hour. If you are on a roll don't stop after 10 minutes. But if you are struggling to write after the 10 minutes is up then its time for a break. For the time wasters strategy, I used it for all of my major assignments. I used it for my PHI paper, my ECN test, and this tech assignment. This strategy helped me because I was able to recognize the things that are distracting me and keeping me from getting my work done. By making a chart with distractions in the left column and the task I'm avoiding in the right column it pushed me away from the things in the left hand side allowing me to get my work done. There were still some distractions just not as bad as usual. It really helped me manage my time a little better since I wasn't getting distracted so often.

Let's Get Motivated

In the past I have always had a hard time getting motivated to do my school work. It was always so boring and I would always find some excuse not to do it, so this week for the Motivational strategy I decided to use Academic Fears. I used this strategy in my SOC/WGS 248 because there is a lot of reading and in my MAT 121 for my exams. I chose to use this strategy because I have always had a hard time getting motivated to read things for school and I have always had a hard time study for exams. So what you to for Academic Fears is you make a chart with four different columns. In the first columns you list three academic fears for each class and then rank them. In the second column you write down the Worst Outcome, which is just describing the absolute worst thing that can happen in that situation. In the third column you write down the Best Outcome that can come out of that situation. Then the fourth column would be the Action Needed to make the best scenario happen. The best thing that came out of using this strategy is that it showed me what will happen if I do or don’t do an assignment. Seeing what could happen if I don’t do these assignment motivates me to do them. Since I have been using this strategy I have noticed a big change in the way that I prepare myself for doing my assignments.

SOC/WGS 248:

MAT 121:

Exploring Rewards

CLEAN MY ROOM!!

Motivation and rewards go hand in hand. My goal for this weeks tech assignment was to be timely, simple, and authentic, and that my rewards matches the interests and goals in my life. I used rewards to motivate myself to stay more organized, and be more efficient with my time.

A goal I set for myself this week was to clean my room. It's been one week since I took the time to put my laundry away, throw out the trash, and simply clean..... I did not know where anything was as you can tell by my room, so I set myself a reward that if I cleaned I would get to relax afterwards and play some xbox. I began by just getting everything off the floor and the table, and from then on I reorganized everything. I even got all my notes together, and reorganized them by class. As a learner, I need my handouts, and notes to be organized, or else I would get flustered when trying to find something. Setting a reward was a great way to have me clean my room. My room is my study environment most of the times, and it is important for my room to stay organized just as it is now.

BEFORE

AFTER

REWARD

WAKE UP AT 8AM

Another goal I set for myself this week was to wake up at 8am on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I never wake up before 12pm on those days because on Friday I have no classes, and on the weekends I always oversleep, thus leaving all my work for Sunday afternoon. A reward that I set for myself was that if I did wake up at 8am and worked till I finished my assignments, I would play hard from the time I finished till it was time to sleep. On Friday, I worked from 8am-3pm. On Saturday, I worked from 8am- 10am. On Sunday, I worked from 8am-12pm. Now, I am finishing up this final tech assignment, and until next weekend the only thing I have to focus on is attending my classes. As a learner, this was really helpful because during the week it's tough to go to 5 classes, and come back to my room and start my homework for the next day. Now, all my homework is done, and I will be able to have a much less stressful week. On top of all this, I was able to enjoy my weekend more than I would normally. I was able to play without having the burden of thinking about what assignments I have due for next week.

START

END

PLAY

Motivation

The Motivational strategy I used this week was Academic Fears. I used this strategy in my PHI 192 class for a paper and in my ECN 203 class for an exam. I used this strategy for these two classes and assignments because I know I have trouble getting motivated for papers and for studying for exams. I thought this strategy would help me stay motivated and on task so I can write a good paper and study for exams better then I have been. For Academic Fears what you need to do is make a chart with four columns. That is what I did for both my PHI and ECN class. Then in your first column you need to write your biggest academic fears for the class and rank them. In the second column you need to write what the best outcome could be from doing good on the assignment. In the third you need to write what the worst outcome could be if you do bad on the assignment. Then finally in the fourth column you need to write what you need to do to stay motivated and accomplish the task at hand. What I found helpful with this strategy was it showed me what could happen if I do really well on the assignments and what could happen if I did really bad on the assignments. That alone motivates me to not do bad on the assignments. What also helped was the fourth column of the chart. It allowed me to reward myself for accomplishing certain tasks. For example if I finished a certain amount of my essay for PHI I would reward myself with a half an hour of T.V. This motivated me not only work on my paper but it motivated me to make it a good paper. The final results of this strategy have been real good so far. I finished my PHI paper and I think it is very well written. I am very confident about it and think I should get a good grade. My ECN exam isn't until the end of the week so I am still working on studying. I think if I follow the chart I should be pretty successful just like in PHI.

Motivation

M-o-t-i-v-a-t-i-o-n

M-o-t-i-v-a-t-i-o-n!

Time to get motivated everyone! What is Motivation?

Motivation can be defined as an action(s) that moves someone towards a desired goal. 99.9% of college students lack the motivational skills that drive us to complete the simplest of tasks.

In a couple of weeks, fall semester will be coming to an end. In these last few weeks it starts to become very stressful and challenging for almost every student to try and stay motivated. For me I have noticed that as the fall semester comes to an end and assignments and exams are coming up to a close, I have become even LESS motivated in all of my courses. It is even harder for me because I am an athlete and have practice everyday along with class and this becomes extremely tiring for me.

Fortunately, this week in CLS we are going over different motivational strategies to help students stay motivated and succeed in their courses. The two different motivation strategies we talked about were Exploring Rewards and Academic Fears.

The first strategy I used was Exploring Rewards. For his strategy I made a chart with three different categories: 1) high-cost rewards, low-cost rewards and no-cost rewards. For each of the sections I wrote a different reward in each of these sections that I think will motivate me to help get what I need to get down.

For the second strategy, which was was Academic Fears. I used this strategy to help motivate me to study for my EAR exam. I always HATE studying for exams because I can never concentration on the material. For this strategy I followed the four steps need to keep yourself motivated through you school work. 1) List three academic fears and then rank each of these fears, 2) next, pick what fear you believe is the worst and then describe why its the worst for you. 3) For the last step put what you steps you need to take to help you finish your task and describe it.

Final Results

Using these two strategies did help me stay motivated with my studying skills. Although, it still was hard for me to stay focuses at times but instead I told myself in my head that it is something that NEEDED to get done and I thought of what the results would be in the future. I still need to work on my motivational skills but I am taking it one step at a time. Eventually by using these skill with school work and throughout my daily life, I will be able to look back on these strategies when I am feeling unmotivated and u

se these to better myself to get my stuff done!

Study guide questions I made for myself to help prepare for the exam