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The Eleven O’Clock News: Dog Snuggles Help Students.
3 responses to “The Eleven O’Clock News: Dog Snuggles Help Students.”
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[…] week I’ve been attempting to organise myself and get closer to being a perfect handbag lady (without the threat of a breakdown, mostly) and that is why I’ve discovered – well, […]
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washing machine tip – in order to assess whether you’ve overloaded it, if you’re able to put your hand/fist into the space at the top of the clothes in the machine and rotate it making little contact with those clothes – then you’re good to go.
and tumble driers have their uses but are exceptionally expensive to run so leave clothes hanging on clothes airer until reasonably dry then a quick tumble for 20 minutes helps loosen them up. except towels …. they feel horrible all dried up and cardboardy … they need line drying or tumbling. and bed linen is just too big to hang around so if outdoor drying isn’t an option, tumbling works fine and is quick and not too expensive.
oh dear, I feel like I’ve strayed into the realms of Woman’s Weekly. Eek!
so onto the important stuff …..STOP MULTI-TASKING !!!! Popular misconception that the ability to multi-task is essential … it just means you’re not giving any of those tasks your full attention, thus, aren’t completing them to the best of your abilities. If you’re trying to watch Sherlock and handbag shop and do homeworky type stuff – all of these are visual based activities and you’ll just frazzle yourself trying. Music – have that on as an aid to learning, preferably something as background noise not something you want to rock out to or will evoke memories that you then get caught up in. It also depends what kind of learner you are, and what type of brain/intelligences you have, as to what works best. Check out stuff by Howard Gardner and 7 Kinds of Smart by Thomas Armstrong.
A bit of exercise is good too, for all sorts of reasons – both the physical effects and psychological. And doggy hugs. And chocolate.
And planning! You know you want to do all the other things, which is why they distract you, because you’re trying to tell yourself to get on with the task at hand. So give yourself time to do whatever you should be … then reward yourself with some time doing the other stuff. It will still be there in an hours time, you don’t need to be checking emails/shopping online/watching Sherlock right now – it’s there when you have time later.
Oh dear, now I sound like an agony aunt … or a mum!
But we all do it, we’re all guilty. We try to fit so much in to our days that we have difficulty juggling everything so why try to do too many things at once, then stress because we’re not achieving it all. Whilst I’m all for striving to achieve your goals and dreams, maybe just allowing ourselves adequate time would improve the end results.
I think if you learn to focus then you won’t necessarily work fewer hours – you’ll just achieve more in that time and in a less stressed way, so it will probably feel like you’ve worked less!
And maybe less caffeine … and perhaps less sugar! Though I’m hardly one to be preaching as I’m rarely in bed before midnight, sometimes 1am – so what do I know about sleep 😛-
First of all let me thank you for the washing machine tip it is brilliant and now some washing is done. (“Woman’s Weekly” is okay; I think Indifferent Ignorance needs a bit of it, since I’d quite like to spend all day knitting and listening to Radio 4.)
Second: thankyouthankyou for the multitasking advice it’s really helped! I am currently focusing on writing an excellent comment and then I think I might make some coffee… have every intention of tackling the caffeine reliance – and by reliance I mean addiction – but hey, one thing at a time.
I read somewhere that the average Briton gets six-and-a-half hours sleep per night. Apparently we should get eight? Maybe it’s time to explore the nap and sneak in those forty winks.
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