Strategize and Win

In my previous blog, I offered tips to help with stress management and in some cases, anxiety too. These are tips that have worked for me.  I wanted to share them in the hopes of helping someone else. The list can be downloaded here for free. 

If you follow me on IG: @JLISeniors, you would have seen my “LIVE” segment about the importance of strategizing and how it works alongside stress management. If you missed that, click on this link to watch or watch below. 

For my visual learners, who prefer to read than to watch, no problem. This blog post is for you. Let’s jump straight in and take note of the three approaches to use when strategizing.

Know your goals and write them down. 

I am a firm believer that “You won’t know where you are going unless you know where you are”. For high school students, it’s important that they go into the first week of school with the motivation of knowing what their current GPA is, so that they know what they should be doing and aiming for during their school year. At the same time, if they are seniors, being aware of college timelines, application deadlines and all that comes with this “12th year” is important. There is nothing worse than being “surprised” with a deadline two days away. 

Know your deadlines

It’s all well and good knowing your goals. The next step is creating a plan that will help execute and meet those goals. It can become overwhelming for some to just write a list, so what I do is prioritize them in order of due dates. This works 99% of the time. 

I am a visual learner, this means I like to and see things written down or learn better by way of seeing a thing. Putting an object or subject in context helps me to process information better too. In this case, I would use a wall planner. Wall planners are usually poster size. Academic wall planners are even better as they start in August and end in July. This allows you to put dates and times into context. 

If you are able to add your deadlines to the academic wall calendar, it is easier to see how long you have to meet the deadline. It wont give you notifications, however if you are a person who crosses days off as the pass, you will be able to see how many days you have left until your deadline.  Here is a link to my favorite wall planner.  

If you prefer the digital approach, go ahead and log into google calendar, which you can also share with an accountability partner, parent or friend to help you stay on task. Be sure to put in the correct dates, add notification and even color code academic subjects which can also help minimize stress. 

Bonus Tip: If you get really good at it writing your deadlines down, try changing  your dates to maybe a few days before the actual deadline. This way, if life happens and you run into some difficulties and need more time, you will actually have a few days to hand in your assignment  and it will still be in on time. 

Be Accountable and Choose Wisely.

Being accountable is crucial to your success. Of course you are accountable to your teachers, or your boss. This is usually at the end. What you really need is someone to check up on you during the process, someone you can trust to even bounce ideas off if needed. Someone who will remind you of your goals when you forget and get demotivated to keep pursuing your goals and someone who has a good reputation for supporting you, trustworthy and honest. 

This person can be a friend, a parent, a mentor. It has to be someone you allow into your safe space and you can accept positive criticism or direction from.  Do you have someone like that?

In the “big wide world” some people join masterminds or hire coaches for this particular type of partnership. 

I hope these tips have been helpful, let me know either way. 

I am super excited for your new academic semester. Let’s make the most of it.