As the year runs closer to an end, we start to see the student stress levels rise. Whether it is due to lack of sleep, tests, procrastination on homework/projects, grades, or even the little things in life. They get to us and eventually we start to break down. We need to help ourselves get better about our assignments, so we do not have to stress about anything. Here are five step you can take to help lower your stress amount.

1. What’s Your Load?

A well-organized life is a good one. People who are scattered across the board don’t tend to have an easy life out on their own. Now, I don’t mean planning out your whole weeks’ worth of clothes or anything like that. But what I mean is to just plan out your day. For example, if you have a planner, write down your homework assignments and any plans that you have after school. If you do this, you can just look at your planner and you could know how to plan what homework you should get done first based on date or difficulty.

2. Can I Do It?

Just like with organization, planning can help you, so you know what you must do, and you can do it. So, let’s say that you have a project given to you on Feb. 28 and due on March 5, and you just found out that you have a surprise sports tournament for the whole weekend. Instead of procrastinating until the very last minute, you should plan and work on it a little bit during the week for a day, so you can have it done, on time.

3. Is It Worth the Miss?

I know that it sounds dumb, but a good attendance can really help you out. The less that you miss school, the better the grade that you can get. If one misses school for being sick or for a sports tournament, that is understandable. However, if ones misses school just because or to catch up on homework, then both students and teachers get irritated because you just skipped school to catch up on homework. Not to mention, you just added more homework to your work load from missing that day of school. So, if you are going to miss school, thing about the consequences.

4. Can I Change?

Habits are something that we can change, but it is very difficult to do. But for most, it is easy to create a habit from scratch. Now some habits are good to have like waking up earlier than you need to or chewing gum when you are getting stressed. But bad habits, like cracking knuckles or procrastinating, can get you into trouble in the future. Start creating good habits like doing your homework that is due Friday on Monday, so it’s already done instead of procrastinating and getting it done Thursday night.

5. Wants vs Needs

Finally, we have our priorities. Now, everyone has a different mindset and how we process different situations, but we all know the difference between what we want and need. What you may want now may affect a present need. We need to think about what we need first, then what we want. Like, let’s say that you have a 50-point paper due in the morning, but you had plans to go to your friends and hang out for the night. You want to go to your friends because you had already made the plan before the assignment was introduced. Your friends are an important part of your life; however, you also need to have good grades so you can achieve your life goals. So even though you may feel a little disappointed at first, you will not regret it because you have a good chance on getting that paper done and turn it in and getting an A.