do it yourself
For less stress, organize your desk De-cluttering your work
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Eric Braem/Kansan Taking your desk from cluttered to clean will decrease the amount of stress in your life and allow you to become a more organized student.
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De-cluttering your work area will make life more manageable and less stressful. BY ERICA BRITTAIN
You look down at your desk, overwhelmed by the amount of paper that covers each square inch. Books are strewn among the sheets, waiting to be pried open and studied. You have a test tomorrow and can't imagine where to start or what was covered in the first quarter of the semester. The stressful feeling begins to invade your mental state and suddenly those haunting questions overwhelm you. How did this happen? Why did I do this to myself? What can I do to make it better?
Get organized. Although organization may come easy for some students, it is more difficult for others.' Organization comes from learned skills that many students have not been exposed to, says John Wade, licensed psychologist at Counseling and Psychological Services at the University of Kansas. "Some students breeze through high school and when they come to college, their academic demands increase," Wade says. "There are very legitimate distractions such as work, school and social interactions that pull students away from being organized."
The first thing to do when creating an organization plan is to evaluate your situation and identify the main problem, says Maria Gracia, author of Finally Organized, Finally Free and creator of the Web site www.getorganizednow.com. "If paperwork is a problem, that's the area that should be concentrated on," Gracia says. "If running late each day is a problem, that's the first area."
After assessing the situation, goals must be set. Gracia says that it is best to break large goals into mini-goals. Write them down on index cards and keep them in a highly visible place so they're seen every day. "Writing down your goals makes them more concrete and motivates you to
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thursday, september 25, 2003