Decisions, Decisions

It starts before you even open your eyes. “Do I get out of bed right now or sleep five more minutes? Wear a jacket or sweater, sneakers or shoes to school today? Eat oatmeal, toast, or a muffin for breakfast? Grab an apple or banana for lunch? Sit in front or back of the school bus? Raise my hand in class or hide behind the kid in front of me? Start on easy or hard test questions? Pick a fantasy or a mystery book for my book report? Write about snakes or cockroaches for science? Do harder or easier homework first? Do all my homework right after school or right after dinner?”

Experts call having too many choices "decision fatigue." Mizz C. calls it brain freeze.

Here’s how one stressed-out student describes "decision fatigue:"

After making many decisions they become hard for me too. They also . . . make me very tired and lazy to the point where I don’t want to do anything. If they start to make me tired I procrastinate or try to forget that I have a decision to make.

Mizz C. has loads of decision making tips that she'll be blabbing about in the future. Here are a few starters:

• Only make big decisions you're rested and fed. 

• Save your brain power for deciding the big stuff. Figuring out what activities to choose is way more important than deciding what to have for breakfast.  

• Put small decisions on autopilot. Go with the same food choices, if possible, for some meals or snack times. It's Oatmeal-for Breakfast-Week! Every Monday is Green Pants Day. Too many choices? Toss a coin! Heads up, it's a mystery for the next book report or snakes for the science project. Do harder homework first one week then easier homework first the next week. Decide which homework style works better for you. Stick with it for good. 

Now if only someone could help Mizz C. decide which shampoo to buy when the store runs out of her usual brand. Shampoo for curly, frizzy, dry, oily hair? Flower or lemon-scented? Economy or trial size? 

Never mind. Mizz C. needs a nap.

Time Flies When You're Hooked on the Internet

What’s this chicken doing on Mizz C’s brand-new blog? The chicken is Mizz C’s kitchen timer. She uses it to keep cupcakes, turkeys, brownies--and her work time--from burning up.

Now Mizz C. has a horrible, embarrassing confession to make. Not so long ago, she could sometimes be an A+ Time Waster. She surfed the Internet and checked her e-mails a million times a day for no good reason.

This had to stop.

So Mizz C. started setting her chicken timer for chunks of work time. When the timer dinged, she would take a a short break to read e-mails and check out silly animal YouTube videos.

Lo and behold! The chicken timer helped Mizz C. get more work done. So she began to let her chicken timer boss her around instead of the Internet.

“Hey, maybe middle graders should use kitchen timers to get their homework done,” Mizz C. thought. And that’s how she came up with the A+ 20/10 Study Method. It’s all explained in Mizz C’s A+ Guide to Great Grades.  

In the meantime, go to the kitchen. See if you can find a timer.

Or ask one of your parents to get you one instead of a new bike, video game, or trip to Disneyland. 




From now on, you can keep those plug-in, screen-faced time thieves--computers television, video games, and the telephone from taking over your life. 

The A+ 20/10 Study Method really works. Mizz C. used it to write today’s blog post. When the chicken timer goes off, she’ll reset it for just a few minutes to watch her favorite penguin YouTube video. It cracks her up every time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pK8dplyTHM&feature=related