Life could be overwhelming and sometimes difficult to keep up with the responsibilities we may have. As I have said in a previous blog, we need to learn how to manage our time, but one trick is taking everything step by step. While being stressed with school, track, a social life, work, and adult responsibilities; I feel my mental and physical well-being can’t handle the pressure every day of my life. Over time, I have developed strategies to keep myself from being overwhelmed, and it is to take one step at a time in everything I do, especially on time-consuming tasks.
Keeping a schedule is a great way to train your brain to keep everything organized. I like to have a spreadsheet with categories regarding the responsibilities and events. That way, I can stay focused on one particular job at a time and not worry about the others until I finish the task at hand. Before, I used to “try” to remember tasks throughout the day, which is sometimes not always helpful. I tend to forget some of the stuff I NEED to do and focus on things I WANT to do. As humans, we love doing things we find easy and most relaxing and push our important obligations.
Keeping a schedule is a great way to train your brain to keep everything organized. I like to have a spreadsheet with categories regarding the responsibilities and events. That way, I can stay focused on one particular job at a time and not worry about the others until I finish the task at hand. Before, I used to “try” to remember tasks throughout the day, which is sometimes not always helpful. I tend to forget some of the stuff I NEED to do and focus on things I WANT to do. As humans, we love doing things we find easy and most relaxing and push our important obligations.
Above is an example of what I have done during the spring semester of 2022
This strategy is helpful for individual tasks and also with duties that happen to have sections getting to the goal. For example, whenever I have an assignment or a paper coming up for school, I usually break it down to make it easier to understand. Very similar to math, where we break down a word problem to determine what to plugin for the equation. Of course, it depends on how difficult the task is and if multitasking is preferable, but at the same time, when something becomes stressful, then breaking it into small pieces is the right thing to do. It can also bring more awareness to assignments at school. If you break down an assignment piece by piece, you can recognize each part of the problem.
Here’s an example of an assignment I have done in my finance class:
A company in which we are interested just paid a dividend of $5.00 per share on its stock. The dividends are expected to grow at a constant rate of 3% per year, indefinitely. If we want a return of 8% on this stock, what is the current price we would be willing to pay for the stock?
- Paid a dividend of $5
- at a Constant rate of 3%
- Want a return of 8% on this stock
- What is the current price we would be willing to pay for the stock?
Current price = D0(1+g)/(R-g)
Current price = 5(1+0.03)/(0.08-0.03)
Current price = $103 per share,
Of course, this is a small example and can easily be solved with the suitable materials you are given. Still, from looking at what I did for this equation, you can see that I put everything in bullet points and wrote down every step of the equation to get the correct answer. But from looking at this strategy, it can shift to larger areas of life and make more complex tasks easier by breaking them down into smaller chunks.
This strategy is also helpful with new things too! For example, I struggled to pray the Rosary, and I always procrastinated my prayer life because it seemed complicated. I started off small and expanded it over time to overcome that difficulty. I started to pray one decade of the Rosary a day, then moved on to two, then three, then four, and then five. Over time, I learned the true meaning of the Rosary and continue to expand my prayer life as time passes. In the past, I used to start praying all five decades of the Rosary all at once, but that just overwhelmed me, and I ended up not praying the days afterward. The same goes for any habit we have. If you start off big with no preparation, it will overwhelm you and not commit to the routine.
I know it is easy to get into the habit of remembering everything and just trying to get everything done, but that isn’t always the best idea. It is also essential to know that having the structure to break down and start small can lead you to get things done efficiently. It is a great way to improve your mental health and lead to a better outcome. Of course, this method is not always for everyone, but from experience, I definitely benefit from this for all parts of my life.
This strategy is helpful for individual tasks and also with duties that happen to have sections getting to the goal. For example, whenever I have an assignment or a paper coming up for school, I usually break it down to make it easier to understand. Very similar to math, where we break down a word problem to determine what to plugin for the equation. Of course, it depends on how difficult the task is and if multitasking is preferable, but at the same time, when something becomes stressful, then breaking it into small pieces is the right thing to do. It can also bring more awareness to assignments at school. If you break down an assignment piece by piece, you can recognize each part of the problem.
Here’s an example of an assignment I have done in my finance class:
A company in which we are interested just paid a dividend of $5.00 per share on its stock. The dividends are expected to grow at a constant rate of 3% per year, indefinitely. If we want a return of 8% on this stock, what is the current price we would be willing to pay for the stock?
- Paid a dividend of $5
- at a Constant rate of 3%
- Want a return of 8% on this stock
- What is the current price we would be willing to pay for the stock?
Current price = D0(1+g)/(R-g)
Current price = 5(1+0.03)/(0.08-0.03)
Current price = $103 per share,
Of course, this is a small example and can easily be solved with the suitable materials you are given. Still, from looking at what I did for this equation, you can see that I put everything in bullet points and wrote down every step of the equation to get the correct answer. But from looking at this strategy, it can shift to larger areas of life and make more complex tasks easier by breaking them down into smaller chunks.
This strategy is also helpful with new things too! For example, I struggled to pray the Rosary, and I always procrastinated my prayer life because it seemed complicated. I started off small and expanded it over time to overcome that difficulty. I started to pray one decade of the Rosary a day, then moved on to two, then three, then four, and then five. Over time, I learned the true meaning of the Rosary and continue to expand my prayer life as time passes. In the past, I used to start praying all five decades of the Rosary all at once, but that just overwhelmed me, and I ended up not praying the days afterward. The same goes for any habit we have. If you start off big with no preparation, it will overwhelm you and not commit to the routine.
I know it is easy to get into the habit of remembering everything and just trying to get everything done, but that isn’t always the best idea. It is also essential to know that having the structure to break down and start small can lead you to get things done efficiently. It is a great way to improve your mental health and lead to a better outcome. Of course, this method is not always for everyone, but from experience, I definitely benefit from this for all parts of my life.