ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION DISASTER MENTAL HEALTH NEWSLETTER
Learning From The Past and Planning For The Future
MENTAL HEALTH MOMENT
May 4, 2001
"Truth is eternal, knowledge is changeable. It is disastrous to confuse
them." Madeline L'Engle
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QUALITY SPORTS PROGRAMS FOR KIDS
Many children who participate in youth sports -- and their parents --
have become obsessed with winning at almost any cost. This attitude
can interfere with what sports programs for kids should be all about,
warns Daniel Perkins, associate professor of family and youth
resiliency and policy. "Go to any sporting event involving six- to
12-year-olds and you're guaranteed to see an out-of-control parent or
coach," he says. Kids at these ages need to focus on sports skills
and life skills, such as accepting responsibility and leadership -
not on competition. For full story, go to
http://aginfo.psu.edu/News/february01/sport.html
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TIME-REFERENCED STRESS
One of the most common sources of stress for busy
people is a constant feeling of being overcommitted
and not having enough time to complete all required
tasks. At one point or another, everyone has the
experience of too much to do and not enough time in
which to do it. Over a long period, these feelings
lead to tension and anxiety and act as a continuous
source of stress on the system. This particular state
of affairs can be called TIME-REFERENCED STRESS.
Time-referenced Stress often occurs because we:
* Commit ourselves to more activities than we can
realistically handle and tend to take on even
more responsibilities as the pressure to produce
increases;
* Fail to establish personal priorities based on
the importance of individual tasks to our life
plan;
* Have no overall plan for organizing and using
the productive time that we do have available.
Any one of the three time-stress activities just
covered can result in feelings of rushing, no time
available for work that needs to be done, worry over
jobs not completed, and missing important deadlines.
The time-stress pattern affects us in many ways and
often leads to constant feelings of anxiety and panic.
Time-referenced Stress may be job related, but the
same feeling of losing control can occur with both
social activities and family relations.
The stress-reduction exercise that follows is aimed
at helping you to gain better control over how you
spend your time. It contains 3 parts which are briefly
summarized below:
* EVALUATING CURRENT TIME ORGANIZATION
The first step in organizing and controlling your
personal time is to assess and evaluate exactly
what you are now doing with the hours you have
available to you each day.
* REVIEW AND REARRANGE YOUR SCHEDULE
Step number 2 is to review your current time plan
and determine what items can be eliminated so that
you may rearrange the schedule to better fit your
important goals.
* APPLYING TIME ORGANIZATION TECHNIQUES
The third and final step in the plan is to put your
revised schedule to work by assigning time-based
priorities, delegating or eliminating nonproductive
activities, and setting criteria for handling and
decision making.
Evaluating Current Time Organization
An evaluation of how you currently organize your time
requires that you divide the activities of a normal day
into an EVENT SCHEDULE which includes both the time you
spend on each event in the schedule and the importance
you assign to the events in terms of your overall life
plan. Developing your personal event schedule is
accomplished in two phases. The first is to make a list
of common activities you might engage in. The aim of the
event schedule is not to have you account for every
minute of the day, but rather to cover the major time-
consuming events -- especially those that seem to take
longer than they should, are hurried, or seem to produce
anxiety.
Once you have listed your own events, write down the
amount of time you estimate you spend on each event in
a normal day - try to be as accurate as possible in
your estimate. Next, rate the importance of each event
to your life plan and achievement.
After you have assigned a time and rating to each item
that applies on both non-job and job-related events, read
the last paragraphs. Do not bother to estimate times or
rate any event which does not apply to you or which you
do very seldom.
NON-JOB AND JOB_RELATED EVENT SCHEDULE:
1..........2..........3..........4..........5
Not Important Extremely
Important Important
________________________________________________________
NONJOB EVENTS Daily Time Importance
Talking in person to others........__________ _________
Telephone Calls....................__________ _________
Watching Television................__________ _________
Reading the paper or books.........__________ _________
Sports and recreation..............__________ _________
Hobbies............................__________ _________
Travel not related to job..........__________ _________
Routine work around the house......__________ _________
Maintenance and home repairs.......__________ _________
Care of children...................__________ _________
Social clubs and meetings..........__________ _________
Shopping and errands...............__________ _________
__________________________________ __________ _________
__________________________________ __________ _________
__________________________________ __________ _________
JOB-RELATED EVENTS
Social activities related to job.. __________ _________
Telephone calls................... __________ _________
Job-related meetings.............. __________ _________
Conferences with individuals...... __________ _________
Routine work activity............. __________ _________
Important and productive
work activity..................... __________ _________
Lunch, breaks, and other
non-working time.................. __________ _________
Travel to and from work........... __________ _________
__________________________________ __________ _________
__________________________________ __________ _________
__________________________________ __________ _________
You now have the necessary information to begin thinking
about how you might rearrange your personal schedule so
that it matches your life plan and goals more closely.
Study your non-job event schedule carefully. Look for
ways in which you might be able to reduce time spent on
tasks rated as low importance and increase time on more
important activities. The point here is for you to get
an objective look at how your non-job time is distributed
and to look for ways in which you would like to change
that distribution. Do the same with your job-related
events.
Applying Time-organization Techniques
Although there are many techniques for
implementing a time-reorganization plan, two of the most
common which seem to apply to many types of schedules are:
* MAKING PRIORITY ASSIGNMENTS
which means assigning specific time orders to tasks,
based on their importance and deadline requirements.
* DECREASING NONPRODUCTIVE ACTIVITY
which means identifying those commitments that contribute
little or nothing to overall goals and then delegating them to
others or eliminating them entirely.
MAKING PRIORITY ASSIGNMENTS
One of the most difficult things about time organization
is deciding the order in which you should tackle the tasks
to be performed. The plans which you created in the list
above are themselves a form of priority assignment, based
on time commitment and importance to you. It is true that
priorities of some type are almost a necessity if a
person plans to maintain a schedule that has more than
three or four items in it. Actually, there are two types
of priority assignment: those priorities which apply to
shorter term tasks and those which apply to longer term
tasks.
Shorter term priorities involve ordering the way in which
you plan to deal with tasks and demands likely to occur
in the next week or so. Probably the best way to use
shorter term priorities effectively is to make a list of
up to ten activities you will probably have to complete
in a given shorter time period (a day, week, or month).
The priority list itself should set the order in which
you plan to complete the tasks. For example, if you have
enough time for only the first three items, then the
remaining items on the list would have to wait for a
future list, or they may become candidates for delegation
or elimination. Even a shorter term listing should be
made with your total schedule in mind. For instance, a
current listing of your shorter-term tasks might be
designed in terms of one or more of the time-reorganization
plans which you created. In this case, you would be
arranging your shorter term activities to take into
account larger goals.
Construct your priority list in such a way that it will
help you to achieve success with your chosen plan. It
may be difficult at first to assign shorter term priorities
so that they help your rescheduling plans. However, it is
better to think through the relation between priorities
and reschedule on paper, rather than try to solve it in
the middle of a busy work day.
The main difference between shorter and longer term
priorities is in the nature of the tasks themselves.
Shorter term tasks deal with immediate events which are
well defined---you know exactly what you will be doing
when you assign the priority. Longer term events are a
set of overall goals that you hope to achieve, like
writing a paper or report, gaining a promotion, or
buying a house. There is a direct link between shorter
and longer term priorities, in that shorter term
assignments are set in terms of overall, longer term
goals.
You should ask yourself what future goals are worth
committing your time to over a longer period. Effective
time organization depends on how well you are able to
relate current event planning to more distant life goals.
The relation between priorities and time scheduling is
the basis of good time administration.
The short exercises you have completed to this point
should form a basis for you to begin constructing other
time plans and priority listings which deal directly
with your current life situation and goals. The sooner
that you begin to structure your time in an orderly fashion,
the sooner you will lessen feelings of rushed anxiety
and reduce the stress potential caused by a lack of
time organization.
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For further information on this topic, use the search engine below to find and
purchase books. Begin by trying the following descriptors in the search engine:
Stress and time, time-referenced stress, time and organization, time organization
techniques, prioritizing activities, strwess-reduction techniques, etc.
https://www.angelfire.com/biz/odochartaigh/searchbooks.html
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Contact your local Mental Health Center or
check the yellow pages for counselors, psychologists,
therapists, and other Mental health Professionals in
your area for further information.
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George W. Doherty
O'Dochartaigh Associates
Box 786
Laramie, WY 82073-0786
MENTAL HEALTH MOMENT Online: https://www.angelfire.com/biz3/news
