Life Skills Development Program & Health Club Activities 1

Lecture Notes Prepared by Dr. [Link] Student Counsellor

EFFECTIVE UTILISATION OF SUMMER VACATION

As senior students you know that summer brings a healthy dose of reality and give you ample
opportunity to make the best use of it for your benefits. Summer vacation comes with variety
of activities. While summer vacation can be relaxing times for sleeping in, eating home-
cooked meals, and seeing old friends; for many students it is the time to utilize it effectively
for preparing for their academic and other goals. It is a great time to keep your eyes wide and
mind open so you can sensibly polish your strengths and bring improvement in otherwise
weak areas. It also presents opportunities, such as discovering new interests, stretching social
horizons, letting you to explore the places and pursuits and studying effectively. And if you
feel stuck, remember: who is holding you back, if not yourself?

When you are getting ready for board examinations the summer vacation can be utilized
effectively to prepare for board exams in a very balanced way wherein you can allot
appropriate time for studies and other relaxing activities. You can choose interesting activities
which will work as a buffer or coping skill which will make your studies more enjoyable.
When you are relaxing this summer vacation you can effectively plan for your board
examinations through better understanding of Time Management, Goal Setting and Effective
Study Habits so that you can begin the new session with renewed enthusiasm.

TIME MANAGEMENT
Time management skills are essential skills for effective people. People who use these
techniques routinely are the highest achievers in all walks of life, from study to business to
sport to public service. If you use these skills well, then you will be able to function
exceptionally well, even under intense pressure. What's more, as you master these skills,
you'll find that you take control of your workload, and say goodbye to the often intense stress
of work overload. All time management skills are learnable. The following are some
advantages of Time Management
 Gain time, motivates and initiates, reduces avoidance, promotes review, eliminates
cramming , reduces anxiety
There are many techniques through which people can master their usage of time. Personal
time survey and understanding of current usage of time, identifying prime time, learning to
make ‘to do lists’, priority exercise, realistic schedule making, daily, monthly or term
planning etc., are part of learning of Time Management

EVALUATION OF YOUR CURRENT TIME USAGE

[Link]. Activity Daily Time Weekly Time
1. School time
2. Home study time
3. Tuition time
4. Personal care time(Bath/brushing/grooming others)
5. Physical Exercise
6. Regularly scheduled functions
7. Club, prayers etc;
8. Sleep time
9. Socializing with friends
10 Time for Cooking / Eating
.
11 Time with family
.
12 Traveling time
.

Workshops conducted for 10th and 12th standard students on 25th & 26th May 2008.
Please file and retain this handout for repeated reading and follow up exercises
Life Skills Development Program & Health Club Activities 2
Lecture Notes Prepared by Dr. [Link] Student Counsellor

13 Other way of time usage

.
Total

PRIORITY EXERCISE:
Your To Do list will have crucial and not crucial items on it. Despite the fact most people
want to be productive, when given the choice between crucial and not crucial items, we will
most often end up doing the not crucial items those are generally easier and quicker than
crucial items. Prioritize your ‘To Do list’ each night. Put ‘H’ next to the most urgent,
important high priority item on your list. Place ‘M’ next to the second most important item on
your list, Place ‘L’ next to the least important item on your list, etc. Then tackle the items on
your list in order of their importance. You many not get everything done on your list, but you
will get the most important things done. This is working smarter, not harder, and getting more
done in less time.

DAILY ‘TO DO LIST’ ‘PRIORITY TASK PLANNER’

Date: __________
Priority Rating Task

TERM PLANNING CALENDAR: Fill in subjects, academic activities and important non-
academic activities and events that you want to work on during summer holidays.
Month Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
May08 29 30 31 1
June08
June08 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

June08 9 10 12 13 14 15 16

June08 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

June08 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

July08 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

July08 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Workshops conducted for 10th and 12th standard students on 25th & 26th May 2008.
Please file and retain this handout for repeated reading and follow up exercises
Life Skills Development Program & Health Club Activities 3
Lecture Notes Prepared by Dr. [Link] Student Counsellor

July08 15 16 17 18 19 20

Workshops conducted for 10th and 12th standard students on 25th & 26th May 2008.
Please file and retain this handout for repeated reading and follow up exercises
Indian School Muscat, Life Skills Development Program & Health Club Activities 4
Lecture Notes Prepared by Student Counsellors, [Link] & [Link] Gupta

THE REALISTIC WEEKLY PLANNER

Time SAT SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI
5-6

6-7

7-2

2-3

3-4

4-5

5-6

6-7

7-8

8-9

9-10

10-11

11-12

Workshops conducted for 10th and 12th standard students on 25th & 26th May 2008.
Please file and retain this handout for repeated reading and follow up exercises
Indian School Muscat, Life Skills Development Program & Health Club Activities 5
Lecture Notes Prepared by Student Counsellors, [Link] & [Link] Gupta

SETTING GOALS EFFECTIVELY

The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective goals:
• State each goal as a positive statement: express your goals positively –
‘Execute this technique well’ is a much better goal than ‘don’t make this
stupid mistake’
• Be precise: set a precise goal, putting in dates, times and amounts so that
you can measure achievement. If you do this, you will know exactly
when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction
from having achieved it.
• Set priorities: where you have several goals, give each a priority. This
helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by too many goals, and helps to
direct your attention to the most important ones.
• Write goals down: this crystallized them and gives them more force.
• Keep operational goals small: keep the low-level goals you are working
towards small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that
you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and
incremental gives more opportunities for reward. Derive today’s goals
from larger ones.
• Set performance goals, not outcome goals: you should take care to set
goals over which you have as much control as possible. There is nothing
more dispiriting than ailing to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond
your control. These could be bad business environments, poor judging,
bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck. If you base your goals on
personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of
your goals and draw satisfaction from them.
• Set realistic goals: it is important to set goals that you can achieve. All
sorts of people (parents, media, society) can set unrealistic goals for you.
They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions.
Alternatively you may be naïve in setting very high goals. You might not
appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how many
skills you must master to achieve a particular level of performance.
• Do not set goals too low: just as it is important not to set goals
unrealistically high, do not set them too low. People tend to do this where
they are afraid of failure or where they are lazy! You should set goals so
that they are slightly out of your immediate grasp, but not so far that there
is not hope of achieving them. No-one will put serious effort into
achieving a goal that they believe is unrealistic. However, remember that

Workshops conducted for 10th and 12th standard students on 25th & 26th May 2008.
Please file and retain this handout for repeated reading and follow up exercises
Indian School Muscat, Life Skills Development Program & Health Club Activities 6
Lecture Notes Prepared by Student Counsellors, [Link] & [Link] Gupta

your belied that a goal is unrealistic may be incorrect. If this could be the
case, you can to change this belief by using imagery effectively.
Achieving Goals
When you have achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done
so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress you
have made towards other goals. If the goal was a significant one, reward yourself
appropriately.

With the experience of having achieved this goal, review the rest of your goal plans:

• If you achieved the goal too easily, make you next goals harder
• If the goal took a dispiriting length of time to achieve, make the next goals a
little easier
• If you learned something the would lead you to change other goals, do so
• If while achieving the goal you noticed a deficit in your skills, decide whether
to set goals to fix this.

Failure to meet goals does not matter as long you learn from it. Feed lessons learned
back into your goal-setting program. Remember too that you goals will change as you
mature –adjust them regularly to reflect this growth in you personality. If goals do
not hold any attraction any longer, then let them go. Goal-setting is your servant, not
your master – it should bring you real pleasure, satisfaction and a sense of
achievement.

Example: The best example of goal-setting that you can have is to try setting your
own goals. Set aside two hours to think through your lifetime goals in each of the
categories. Then work back through the 25 year plan, 5 year plan, 1 year plan, 6
month plan, a 1 month plan. Finally draw up a To Do list of jobs to do tomorrow to
move towards your goals. Tomorrow, do those jobs, and start to use goal-setting
routinely.

Key points:
Goal setting is an important method of:
• Deciding what is important for you to achieve in your life
• Separating what is important from what is irrelevant
• Motivating yourself to achievement
• Building your self-confidence based on measured achievement of goals

You should allow yourself to enjoy the achievement of goals and reward
yourself appropriately. Draw lessons where appropriate, and feed these back
into future performance.
Besides all the above it can be said that your goals should be “SMART”.

S- Simple
M- Measurable
A- Achievable

Workshops conducted for 10th and 12th standard students on 25th & 26th May 2008.
Please file and retain this handout for repeated reading and follow up exercises
Indian School Muscat, Life Skills Development Program & Health Club Activities 7
Lecture Notes Prepared by Student Counsellors, [Link] & [Link] Gupta

R- Realistic
T- Time Bound
EFFECTIVE STUDY HABITS.
How do you study?
To help you be realistic about your present approach to study, here is a quick
Questionnaire. Consider each Question carefully and answer it honestly by writing
“YES” or “NO”.
1 Do you make out a time table for the studying you will do each day? Yes No
2 If so, do you usually keep to it?
3 Do you usually study in the same place every time?
4 Do you find difficulty getting down to work at the start of a study
session?
5 Do you get your written work in on time?
6 Do you try to contribute to class discussion?
7 If you are having trouble with your work, do you usually discuss the
problem with your teachers/ friends?
8 Do you try to analyze your work to see where you may be weak?
9 Do you usually glance through a chapter, making a preliminary
survey before you read it in detail?
1 Do you frequently skip tables and graphs when they occur in your
0 reading?
11 When you come across a word in your reading that you do not know,
do you usually look it up in the dictionary?
1 Do you agree that memorizing is the most important factor in
2 studying?
1 Do you write notes in skeleton form (outline of key words- and
3 phrases rather than continuous prose)?
1 In lectures, do you usually take notes just as fast as you can write?
4
1 Do you keep all your notes for one topic together?
5
1 Do you consciously use ideas you learn in one course to help you in
6 some other course?
1 When you have to memorize something, do you usually try to so it all
7 in one sitting?
1 Do you find it difficult to express your ideas in writing?
8
1 If an examination or test is sprung on you unexpectedly, do you get a
9 low mark?
2 Do you sit up late studying the night before the examination?
0

The Questionnaire you have just completed is based on one tried out by large
numbers of students. Successful students more often than unsuccessful students
tended to give the answers shown in the next page.

1. YES 8. YES 15. YES

2. YES 9. YES 16. YES

Workshops conducted for 10th and 12th standard students on 25th & 26th May 2008.
Please file and retain this handout for repeated reading and follow up exercises
Indian School Muscat, Life Skills Development Program & Health Club Activities 8
Lecture Notes Prepared by Student Counsellors, [Link] & [Link] Gupta

3. YES 10. YES 17. NO

4. NO 11. NO 18. YES
5. YES 12. YES 19. NO
6. YES 13. YES 20. YES
7. YES 14. YES

Workshops conducted for 10th and 12th standard students on 25th & 26th May 2008.
Please file and retain this handout for repeated reading and follow up exercises