Where do we spend our time?

This week was focused on time management. We handed out planners to our students that I had put together and then did an m&m/skittle activity. Each student got 24 m&m’s/skittles and had to divvy out their time spent on various activities. i.e., work, classes, sleep, eating, exercising, commuting, homework, netflix, social media, video games, texting, religious activities, etc. Most of my students ran out of their candy before this activity was finished. Time management is something I am constantly working on. I feel as if I never have enough time for the things I need to accomplish in a day.

After doing this activity, we went over this diagram.

     

The two quadrants we spend most of our time in is Q1 and Q4. We become “burnt out” after feeling as if we are constantly playing catch up since we are in Q1 so often. How do we break this cycle? By planning.

The next day I did an activity that this video presents pretty well. https://youtu.be/v5ZvL4as2y0

The large rocks, represent the important things such as family, health and relationships. These things typically can’t be replaced.

The pebbles, represent other things that matter in your life but aren’t as important. Like. work and school.

The sand, represents the “time wasters” and smaller things in life which include netflix, video games, etc.

   

This is fun to do in front of students because it is a physical representation of how well things work out if you plan your life around the big things first.

Positive Self Talk :)

Today we did a fun activity. We gave the class three index cards and had them write these statements on two of the cards.

1. I am a __________, ___________, ___________ person.
2. I am a __________, ___________, ___________ person, and I ____________ing ___________.
3. I am a __________, ___________, ___________ person, and I ____________.

They filled in the blanks with positive adjectives whether they believed them about themselves or not. They got to choose which words they used. On the back of the index cards they chose which statement they liked best from the other side and wrote this statement on the back. We then went around the classroom and they needed to share what their statement about  themselves to another person. The person they shared this with would then say, “yes, you are!” and the first person needed to say, “I know! Thanks!”. We went around the room sharing these statements with each other until most of the class got to hear each others statements.

This activity was a good way to get the students to share their positive self talk. How often do we use positive self talk with ourselves? I think we all spend too much time thinking badly of ourselves. “We are what we imagine ourselves to be.” (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.) How will you change your poor self talk to positive self talk? We are our toughest critics.