Ok, so before really getting into this post I'd like to share a little story. As you probably know, I'm in 7th grade (well... now 8th) and in the lunch room at school occasionally people from different grades will say hi or pass a few words. Also, the former 8th graders graduated a week earlier than the rest of the middle school, leaving their legacy and empty lunch tables behind. So a few weeks ago one 8th grade girl came up to the 7th grade girls' lunch table looking dazed. When questioned what was wrong she said, "I just realized... I have a whole summer free. What am I going to do? I'll just have to sleep all day!" and left. Who else here is with her?
Last summer I started a "summer agenda" (aka- an old notebook that is gel penned into looking like a planner) where I write what I need/want to do for the day and plan out my various tasks. Last night I was looking at this week, which had pretty much nothing to do except one or two different tasks. I found myself in that 8th grade girl's boat thinking 'What is there to do?'. After some thinking I wrote down some random things that I had been meaning to do for a while but never got around to it. Soon I found that I would be, in a way, too busy for a comfortable summer day. In about 2 minutes I had accidentally gone from bored to busy. Anyone else with me?
But what to do in the endless struggle between bored and busy? Let me start this paragraph by letting you know that only one thing on that checklist is done... the bullet entitled Blog Post... so should I really be giving any advice? Here's what I find to help find that impossible happy medium...
PLAN. Seriously, whenever I'm stressed about any schoolwork or tasks piling up on me, I plan. You know stress-eating... yeah well I stress-plan. Somehow for me, getting out a planner and writing down what I need to do helps me. If you write down everything you need to do, and then organize what you'll do each day that seriously should help. And, just as a bonus feature to this episode of stress, you can decide what tasks you can do in what order. Typically for me I like to get the easy and quick stuff done first and do the longer stuff last. (Keep in mind that this is coming from a middle schooler whose hardest task everyday is surviving through Math homework.) For instance, when doing homework, I tend to do the easy worksheets first and studying or project work last. One exception though, I do do (haha) Math homework first to get it over with. Oh boy... this turned into a really long post.
What are your methods to deal with the madness? ;)