Task-oriented or Time-oriented?

How do you do school work when you get home? Are you task-oriented or time oriented? What does that even mean?

TASK-ORIENTED
Being task-oriented simply means that you focus on the tasks at hand and work off of that list:

1. History: Complete the worksheet
2. Math: Answer problems 21-39, odd
3. English: Read chapters 3-4 and write sentences for this week's vocab list
4. Spanish: conjugate the verbs on this week's list
5. Science: study for TOMORROW's test!

And how long does it take to complete the tasks on your to-do list? 45 minutes? 60 minutes? What does it really mean to study? Why would you stop at the odd problems? How did you do on the last test? Will that information ever be on any other tests to come?

Have you considered becoming more...

TIME ORIENTED ??
Being time-oriented means that you focus on the time that you spend, devoting your efforts to one content at a time.

• Your parents tell you that being a student is your full time job: You're in class 45 minutes x 7 periods = 315 minutes per day x 5 week days = 1575 minutes per week / 60 minutes = 26.25 hours per week.
• A full-time job is approximately 40 hours per week.
• How should you spend the remaining 14 hours?
• 14 hours / 5 days = 2 3/4 hours per day

How can you spend 2 hours and 45 minutes on school work each day after school?

• Arrive home at 3:15, grab a snack
• 3:30-4:00: spend 30 minutes on your hardest class, while you have the most energy
• 4:00-4:30: spend 30 minutes on an easier class for a mental break
• 4:30-5:00: spend 30 minutes on a harder class before dinner
• 5:00-6:00 TALK TO YOUR PARENT(S)/GUARDIAN AND SHOW THEM WHAT YOU DID TODAY.
• 6:00-6:30: eat dinner (including your veggies) and ask your family about their day
• 6:30-7:00: spend 30 minutes on a challenging class
• 7:00-7:30: spend 30 minutes on a challenging class
• 7:30-8:00: spend 30 minutes on the class where you're currently earning your best grades
• 8:00-10:00: watch the TV shows you've DVR'ed all afternoon, check in on social media, tweet/post something positive
• 10:00 shower (if that's your thing at night) and GO TO BED!

MAJOR CAVEAT: Honors and AP classes usually need closer to 60 minutes to ensure greater success.

Now, how should you spend the time that you are devoting to each class? Take your pick:

• Complete the assigned homework
• Re-write today's notes
• Re-read today's notes
• Pre-read for tomorrow's topic
• Re-read old assessments
• If you were assigned odd problems, try the even ones
• Look up words that confuse(d) you
• Check YouTube/Khan Academy for reviews of topics that confuse(d) you
• If you still have time, do some practice problems for the SAT and ACT
• If you still have time, read for pleasure.

Sorry; simply passing is not good enough. You need to do the best that you can do in order to maximize options for after high school.
It's fine to make a mistake once in a while; that's part of life, and a big part of adolescence. But you mustn't let your mistakes define you, and what you learn from your mistakes are a greater measure of your character than any achievement that came without effort.

By the way, this post - and the concept - was inspired by an inspiring book - Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell.

Be SMART in 2013

As we head into the new year, this is a time that many of us make resolutions to improve ourselves. Some people vow to lose weight or stop smoking, or make other changes to improve their health. Let's discuss some strategies and examples related to age appropriate New Years resolutions in high school.
There is a widely accepted principle to goal setting that you have already learned about in school counseling lessons since elementary school. We are more likely to find success with our goals if they are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. It would also give us some focus if we relate these goals to the three domains of student development that school counselors support, namely, academic, career, and personal/social.
When goals are specific, we give them focus. "I'd like to lose weight" is not as specific as "I will lose 10 pounds." "I will improve my grades" is quite broad when compared to a long-term goal like "My quarter GPAs will be 1 grade point higher than the previous one" or a short-term goal like "I will spend 30 more minutes reviewing and rewriting my class notes, and start studying for exams two weeks before the tests are scheduled." A specific social goal would be to sit down and eat dinner with your parents at least three nights a week, or to not touch your phone while eating said dinner.
When we talk about goals being measurable, we add accountability. It is sensible to know how we did at meeting (or setting) our goals if we write them down (like a contract) and revisit our progress periodically. Such accountability will inevitably involve the use of data, like reducing your class tardies or increasing the number of homework assignments you turn in complete and on time. However, please don't punish yourself harshly if you come short of your goals. Nobody is perfect, especially not teenagers. Allow yourself the flexibility to make mistakes. Simply revise your goals over time to make them more attainable as measured by the data that makes sense for your situation.
Making goals attainable is a challenge for many teenagers, evidenced by popular plans to improve their cumulative GPAs from below 2.0 to above 3.0 in one year or making blanket and complicated intentions like getting into college. The actual admission is not in your control, but you can control your efforts, timeliness, and use of resources. Similarly, "making more friends" is not as simple as it sounds; it is more attainable to "join two student organizations" or "try out for an athletic team," which can put you in a position to establish meaningful relationships with peers who share your interests and values.
Making goals relevant addresses two areas: they should be related either to a clear need you have (it's more relevant to improve your grades if they are lower than B's, but maybe if you have a GPA higher than 3.0 you can plan to find time in your schedule for extracurricular enrichment or exploring possible careers) or pertinent to your long-term objectives (if you wish to attend college, it will help ensure personal and social acclimation to convince your parents to give you practice with more autonomy and independence, like applying to volunteer at a sleepover camp or attending a summer program on a college campus).
Committing your goals to time-bound parameters helps you maintain control of your goals. If you break your goals into smaller chunks, you can modify them every month or academic quarter to better address your actual life, beyond the lofty optimism that comes after being off school for a week. One time bound goal is to secure a summer internship by May. Another is to be academically eligible for fall sports, which requires a C average during fourth quarter. You can set yourself up to achieve that goal by working similar academic goals into your plans every five weeks between now and April, so that by the time the fourth quarter comes around, you'll be used to the habits that give you such a result.
Please discuss your resolutions with the important adults in your life, as they know you best - maybe even better than you know yourself. If you happen to have a family situation in which sharing your goals will result in your feeling worse about yourself than not saying anything at all, please come in and share your goals with your school counselor. We can empower you to meet your goals, and maybe even help you develop strategies for self preservation at home.
After all, the act of setting and assessing goals is intended to improve our lives. Failing once in a while is not necessarily terrible. It is okay to make mistakes. What matters is what you learn about those mistakes. Just keep moving onward and upward, and never settle for the status quo, and you'll be sure to have a happy and successful 2013, by whatever definition works for you as an individual.