JennyCao.ca

Hi everyone,

I know I haven’t posted personal development posts in a while. But I think this is a good time to post the second part of my “How to survive a stressful term” series.

This series is for those of you that is dealing with a particularly stressful term, and would like some guidance on how to deal with the stress of having to accomplish the seemingly impossible tasks you’re faced with. I wrote this for my fellow students in the School of Accounting and Finance in the University of Waterloo, mainly in the 2A term that is faced with getting their first co-op job for the winter term and dealing with a heavy course load at the same time.

This post is all about what to do when it seems like the sky is crashing down and all you want is for the clock to stop ticking! We all know that time won’t stop, but there are other ways to reduce the stress and stop things from piling up. I know that everyone is probably very busy, so I’ll get straight to the point. Here’s some tips to deal with stress:

1. Do all tasks that requires 2 minutes or less NOW! - You can play around with the number of minutes, but the point is that if you can get it done fast right now, then do it no matter how much you don’t want to. Make this a law! So if a task is possible to be done right now, and it takes less than 2 minutes, do it RIGHT NOW!
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2. Capture all incoming information and tasks - Make sure you have a place to put down all your tasks the moment you get them or think of them. I suggest keeping a little notebook with you at all times, and whenever you realize that you have to do something, write it down, even if it’s not that important. If you don’t capture all your tasks like this, then your subconscious will. And your subconscious isn’t very good at telling you what you need to do at the right time, but it is very good at contributing to your stress levels by reminding you constantly that something isn’t done.
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3. Don’t compare yourself with others – Don’t stress yourself out because everyone around you seems like they’re super-human, instead pride yourself in knowing and being friends with these people!
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4. Identify your next action – Remember getting things done? The best cure for stress is working on whatever is making you stressed. Normally, as long as you’re doing productive work, you can keep your stress level in check.
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5. Look at the sky or go outside, or both! – This is easy to do and it works, at least for me. When you’re stressed, you feel like you’re in a hole with no way out. Well prove yourself wrong!
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These are just some tips that you can try out the next time you feel stressed, but remember, it’s very normal for you to feel stressed and it’s OK to feel like that.

I will not waste any more of your precious time now, go do what you have to do! Or just rest for a little while.

For those of you in 2A, the recruiting process is about to begin!

The information night for the big 6 accounting firms (CA night) is going to be on the 15th of September, that’s the second day of lectures! I know it feels like summer had just begun, but things are going to move much faster than you expect. And the next thing you  know, you’re going to be in business formal standing in front of a recruiter on the 15th (and yes, you’re ALL going to be there! No exceptions!). When that time comes, will you be ready?

Now is a critical time to prepare yourself and do some research. A while back, I had a meeting with Chris Bennett from KPMG, and wrote 2 articles based on the questions I asked during that meeting. Chris provided many great and useful answers and information in those articles and now he has some more!

To help Waterloo students learn as much as they could before the September 15th CA night, he asked me to tell everyone about 2 very important links full of resources:

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KPMGFIT.ca – This is a goldmine of resources! This will definitely answer the majority of your questions and tells you what KPMG is all about. This is a must-visit before the CA night! Bookmark it right now!

KPMGFIT YouTube Channel – To complement the site, KPMG set up a YouTube channel too! They have some really great videos that are really enjoyable to watch!

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Both of these sites are great places to get more perspective on the KPMG programs,  people, and culture! It should be already be at least 2 hours since you first started reading this post because you already checked out the links above, read everything and watched every video before you even continued reading! =P I will be adding these two links under the links section on the right sidebar, so it will never be pushed down by future posts.

I can stay here and give out all sorts of reasons why the above links are so important, but I’m sure everyone’s smart enough to get my point. Just check them out before the September 15th CA night OK? (and that’s just a little more than a week from now!)

Also, we should all thank Chris Bennett for putting so much effort into helping students like us to succeed! I’m sure we all benefited from the information he gave us, so on behalf of everyone, I would like to say: “Thank you so much Chris for all your help!” I think it’ll be nice for everyone to thank him personally on CA night as well!

So to all 2A students, enjoy the rest of your summer, good luck with school and the recruiting process, be prepared for CA night, and mostly importantly….

… Be yourself!

Links to the KPMG Questions I was referring to above:
Part 1
Part 2

Hi everyone!

Around a month ago, I went to chapters and bought the book “The Merck Manual of Medical Information“. It’s a book that contains descriptions, causes, and treatment of many illnesses, a little like a medical library.

At first I bought it because of my science background, I thought having a reference of dieases and general biology/medial information would be a great companion to my science background. However the more I started using it, the more I realized that everyone should have this book! So far it’s been very helpful in diagnosing some of the problems my family and friends had, and it’s been a great resource for general health related knowledge such as stress and exercise!

The fall term is about to start soon, and I know that everyone is either very excited, motivated, or a bit nervous. We’re all very focused on the term ahead and wants to give it our all. That’s great! It’s wonderful to have such motivation, but during this exciting time of growth and opportunity, I would like to remind every to take care of themselves. Particularly since the H1N1 is due for a pretty big rebound in the fall.

I would like to help everyone by offering any knowledge from this book, if you have any questions just ask! But remember I’m not playing doctor here, just looking up information in a book! I will also be writing periodic posts about some information I think is pretty important here, like when you should see a doctor and stress!

I know this is a very important time to our personal and professional development, but don’t forget your health! Your health is like the lenses we see the world through. No matter how good your world is, it means nothing if you can’t see it clearly.

Good luck and take care!