I'll Do It Tomorrow..It's Only a Day Away.......

Fess up: You're a procrastinator. Tomorrow sounds like the perfect day to do whatever...or maybe next week...next month...

Sound familiar?

 

Maybe you're putting something off because you feel overwhelmed. Maybe it's because you know it will take a ton of your time. Or, maybe you don't think it's going to take that long.

And then....the paper is due, the bill is due, the project is due, or you're still eating too much junk food..... and you haven't done a thing about it.

Yikes!

 

If your excuse is: I don't have any spare time.....

Take a look at how you're spending your time. How many hours are spent watching TV? Texting? Gaming? On Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat? Today, grab a pad and pencil and write down how much time you're doing those things. You may be surprised how much time you actually have available.

Here are some tips that might be helpful for you to stop putting things off:

 

• Doing something is better than nothing. Get started! If it's a paper you need to write, start by choosing a subject and writing down an outline. Now you have a plan.
• Set reasonable goals. Chances are you cannot do the entire project or paper in just one session.
• A large calendar is going to be a huge help: Your instructor gives the due dates of all papers and tests at the beginning of a semester. Write it all down on your calendar and refer to it daily. Look ahead: What's due next week? Then you have to make a plan to accomplish it.
• Don't blow it all out of proportion. You can do it!
• Make a decision. Whether it's about what your project will look like, or what you want to achieve--decide something. Do it today.
• Don't expect perfection, but do your best.

 

• Break the task down into smaller chunks. Set time limits, like: I will work on this until 2:30 and then take a break. I will give this one hour of my day in the morning and one hour in the evening.
• Give yourself a little reward. Think: When I reach this goal, I'll have some coffee, or I'll get up and walk around a little. 
• Stay focused: When you're working on this, you're not doing anything else. Your phone is in another room, and you do not check your phone or think you can play 'one short game' while you are working. Two minutes distracted can so easily turn into half an hour...another half hour that you didn't work on your project.
• Write down your timeline. That is, by a certain date you will have an outline finished. Two days later, you will have the first three parts written....until you have a completion date, well ahead of the actual due date if possible.

 

• Start with the hardest part. Everything else will fall into place after it.
• Ask for help if you need it. Do you need a tutor? Maybe just someone to bounce ideas off of? Seek someone out---and not someone who will be an accomplice in procrastination!
• Don't delay something thinking that it will give you an excuse for not finishing: "I would have done it, but time just got away from me." It's a pretty good bet that an employer or instructor isn't going to be impressed with that excuse. Of course, you're letting yourself down, too, by not allowing yourself to be successful.
• SAVE YOUR WORK!!!!
• Are you allowing yourself to fail? Is that your comfort zone? You can't blame someone else for a goal not met.
• Most important, when you set goals and achieve them, give yourself a little 'pat on the back,' for finishing that task. Remember how reluctant you were to start, and the fact that you're on your way to achieving what you wanted. Good for you!
• Keep up the good work!!!

Why We Care About Lead Poisoning

You may have heard about the water problems they're having in Flint, Michigan.

 

Here's the basics: Flint always took its water from Lake Huron, but to save money, the City leaders decided it would use the Flint River instead. That river is very polluted; in fact, some residents thought it was a joke when it was first suggested. It was to be a temporary solution, but went on for several years.

 

The water coming out of faucets in homes was brown and tasted bad. Not only did people hesitate to drink the water, but also to bathe in it or cook with it. Complaints were made, but nothing was done. Two years after the switch, some researchers came in and found the lead levels in the water to be much too high-19 times the amount found in Lake Huron water. The City of Flint hadn't followed Federal law regulating water quality. It was revealed that if the City of Flint had spent just $100 a day for a chemical to treat the water, the lead would have been eliminated or greatly reduced.

 

Where does lead come from?

• It comes from old paint, which contained lead. Lead is no longer allowed as an ingredient in paint. Children have picked off pieces of old paint and eaten them, and if there is lead dust in the air it can be breathed in.
• In the past, pipes used to set up water systems in cities were either made of lead or contained lead. Since this was so many years ago, replacing the pipes is a huge undertaking. Pipes can be lined with a safe coating that seals it off. 
• Lead was also present in window blinds made long ago. Dust from these blinds can get into the air and be breathed in.
• The ways it gets into our bodies is through eating or drinking things with high levels of lead or it can also be breathed in and absorbed through the skin.

It looks harmless...

 *Interesting to note that it is closely related to tin. In the 1600s, tin used to be called "plumbum candidum (bright tin) and lead used to be called "plumbum nigrum (black tin)"...you see where the term 'plumbing' came to be.

 

But it's not meant to be put into the human body.

Here are symptoms of lead poisoning:

• Brain damage, loss of IQ
• Tooth decay
• Hearing loss
• Anemia
• Seizures
• Short attention span, ADD, hyperactivity
• Abdominal pain and disorders
• Memory Loss
• Stunted growth-it affects the human growth hormone

Children are particularly vulnerable to brain damage; their bodies absorb lead very easily. Tests done on children from Flint show that they have lost several IQ points due to lead poisoning.   

People who work in these lines of work have often been exposed to lead, through breathing in fumes or through absorption through their skin-

• Welders
• Printers
• People who work with X-rays and do not wear protective gear
• Metal foundries
• Miners

 

The lead dust can be brought into the home on the clothes of people and thereby expose the rest of the household by breathing or through their skin.

You can read about the ongoing crisis in Flint here, and about the doctor that made a connection and proved there was a huge problem.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/03/us/flint-michigan-water-crisis/index.html

The lines on these bones are from lead poisoning: they should not be there.

 

Here is info from the Center For Disease Control:

 

http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/

What Did You Do?

If you're feeling overwhelmed, rest assured you aren't the only one. We tend to think about all the things we have to do and the notion that we can't get them done.




There is an app in which, at the end of each day, it sends you an email for you to list what you have done instead of what you haven't, to reassure you that there is progress being made even when it seems like it's not. Kind of like goal setting in reverse.

So at the end of today, make a list of what you have done. It may look like this:

• Got up
• Got dressed
• Got to class on time
• Took good notes
• Checked your goals for the day or month
• Cared about a friend
• Ate decent food
• Went to tutoring, or to study group
• Learned something
• Made sure a bill got paid on time
• Took out some trash
• Read a book
• Studied, and studied well
• Started a project
• Finished a project
• Tweaked a project to make it better

See? It's not hard to find what you've done with your time today, and it hasn't been completely wasted. In fact, maybe listing your day's activities will help you be more accountable to yourself.




If your day's review looks like this, then changes need to happen tomorrow:

• Played video games
• Texted with friend(s)
• Had 2 cookies and a glass of flat soda for lunch
• Texted some more
• Forgot to wear socks. Got frostbite on toes.
• Listened to music. Fell asleep between classes. Missed class.
• Texted some more
• Forgot where you parked your car
• Found car, went home, played video games, texted

And how about if you go back a few more days or a week?

• Returned library books on time
• Took a walk
• Cleaned something
• Called about a job or an internship
• Filled out your FAFSA
• Got your papers sorted so you could find things easier
• Learned something
• Made folders for all your important papers
• Read a book
• Remembered something
• Helped someone with something

Or in the last month or two?
Filled out a scholarship application, and sent it in

• Studied for a test
• Got a decent grade on a test
• Did some research for a class
• Wrote a paper and turned it in on time
• Helped someone with his/her homework
• Read a book
• Was a good coworker
• Avoided a car accident
• Asked for help when you got stuck
• Learned something
• "Forgot" about Facebook for a couple of hours
• Created something just for the fun of it
• Made a goal and set a date for it
• Took two steps towards your goal...or more

Of course, in order to achieve things, you have to have goals so you can 'check them off your list.'




What did you do...In the last year? Two years? Think about where you were then compared to where you are now. You can list things that went wrong and what you learned from them-all of them are steps you've finished. You are doing fine, just remember to keep working at your goals and you're going to get there. You'll see if you look back that you've actually accomplished a lot. It was just a step at a time and it didn't seem like you were going anywhere....




But you were.