Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Winter Gear Organization

It's no secret that I love organizing. I love having a place for everything and making my day so much simpler and faster. However I recently stumbled over a problem. Half of one of my drawers were being taken up with gloves, hats, scarves and everything else that comes with winter. So I set out to solve this little problem.

Now I feel that it should be said that I don't live in the coldest place. It snows maybe once a year, a few frosts but generally is not the freezing cold place that you think that it would be. Leave that for the central south island were the lowest recorded temperature is something like -26c (-14.8f) in 1903 In Ranfurly or -21.6c (-6.88f) in 1995 in Ophir, that's what I would call cold.

Moving on... I quickly thought of ideas for where I could store my winter gear, and after a few pinterest searches decided on a wire basket that I could put at the bottom of my wardrobe.

You think that this would be simple enough, but I live in New Zealand, I see things online then start to see them pop up in shops anywhere from 6 months later to never.
 

After searching high and low for a basket that was the right size and shape for the space and that also suited my budget (I ain't gonna pay $50 for a place to store things that I hardly use in), I almost gave up when after looking in Kmart I saw a few items that would seem like I might find one in there, but no... So I went home and looked up the Australian Kmart website because we always get the same products and lo and behold there it was a blue wire basket for $12.

Of course I had to wait about a week before it was in-store here but it was worth it. It was the perfect shape and when I got home I quickly filled it up and felt super happy.

How do you organize your winter gear? Does it get cold where you are from? Does it snow where you live (I like snow!)?

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Junk Free June

I know that it is hard staying healthy in College, that's just something we all struggle with. So this June I have signed up for Junk Free June. An initiative to support the Cancer Society here in New Zealand. This means for the month of June I will be going without "Junk Foods".
Image: Junk Free June

This is going to be tough for me, I will have to stop baking for an entire month. But it is such a great cause and I would really love it if you could get on board and support me. You can donate here.

You could also sign up and do it too! It is such a great idea and I will benefit so much from this as well, as my eating habits are less than healthy. So I will be using this as a jump-start to a new healthier me.

Remember you can donate here.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Keeping up With College Work

I'm sorry about the lack of posts recently. I have been really busy with college studies and work (I started a new job recently) so getting used to a schedule is getting really hard. So I thought that today I would talk about keeping up with College work
I know it is around finals time for my readers in the Northern Hemisphere, but here we are 3/4 through the first semester, the time that everything starts to build, and getting a little bit behind means that it takes ages to catch up. So in terms of my really bad time management at the moment I thought that I would share with you some tips to help with getting stuff done.
Use a planner. I can't stress this enough. It is always good to write down things that are going on, work, assignments readings and everything in between.
Make lists. Even when I am behind (like now) I like to keep a list of everything that I have to do urgently, and things that need to be done when I have time (things like readings). This way when I do catch up with my notes I can easily see what reading I need to read next (also helps if they are in order of when they needed to be read by).

Just Do It. Nike was onto something when they wrote this, you never get anything achieved if you don't start it. So just take a few minutes and start it.

Plan out study time. Making an effort to plan out time to achieve certain tasks mean that you do not have an excuse to not do it. 
Every little bit counts. An hour or two a day is what I am doing on catching up. When I am caught up I will continue to do this to stay on track and ace my exams (which are in like a month, eek). Just by doing a little bit doesn't make it hard or even seem hard, but eventually you will catch up and be flying through ahead of your syllabus and happy as Larry!

There are so many things that take up time in College, but just by applying these little tips you will get through it and stay ahead of what you need to do.

What little tricks do you have to stay ahead with College Work? Do you have any day planner that you like to use to work out your daily schedule?

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

5 Tips on How to Deal with Stress

Stress is a big thing in College, it determines so many things from your grades to your friendships yet people spend very little time dealing with it and more fighting it.

I will start off by saying that everybody deals with stress in different ways. I seem to bottle it up and then it builds to the point of really bad anxiety. I recently started a new part-time job and I had to deal with really irrational anxiety before I started, things that go through my head like what-ifs, even though I know that it won't be that bad I still have to fight with myself. I have a few printable's that will help with stress here.

I have a few different ways of dealing with stress and these 5 tips are all very useful.

1. Exercise. I know that this seems like the last thing that you want to be doing when you are all piled up with College work, but it really does help to relieve some of the pent-up energy. I also read somewhere that by doing exercise it helps to get rid of the adrenile that your body uses to stress.

2. Yoga. This is like the epitome of de-stressing. It really does help. Just take a few minutes to look up a youtube video and go for it. I promise you will feel so much better.

3. A Hobby. I like to bake when I am stressed, it helps me to divert all of my attention to what I am doing in the moment. Any hobby or interest would work as long as it is something that you enjoy and takes up a lot of your attention.

4. Start small. Just start working on the things that you are stressed about.You will not get anywhere without starting.

5. Spend sometime actually thinking about the things that you are stressing about. Write them all down. Make a date that they need to be done by. There everything is now out of your head and onto a piece of paper.

How do you deal with stress? Is there anything that you always find you stress out over?