Feeling sad? You are not alone. Everyone feels sad sometimes. It’s good to know how to help yourself feel better. 【小题1】

Tell yourself that you feel sad. “I’m feeling sad.” Simple, right? Naming a feeling can help you find out why you feel that way. Accept the sadness you feel.

【小题2】 Ask for help. Tell someone how you feel. 【小题3】 After they listen, they might say, “No wonder you feel that way, I see why you feel sad.” It helps to know they understand.

Think about good things. When you’re ready to feel better, think of a few good things. 【小题4】 Was someone kind? Did something go well? You can think of other good things, like your favorite books, games, or shows.

【小题5】 Do something to make you feel good. Play a game or sport, ride a bike, dance or run, take a walk, make art or music. Spend time with someone you like.

Remember, it’s okay to feel sad from time to time. There are plenty of things you can do to overcome these bad feelings.

Do you ever find yourself sitting down to work on a project for your job, study for an important test, or even just get some simple things done, but find yourself almost immediately caught in social media for hours at a time? While providing plenty of fun, social media can, unfortunately, stop us from focusing on business.

Losing focus can be a result of a distracting environment—not preparing yourself mentally for your work, or not having the right systems in place to make sure you stay on task. Luckily, focusing is something we can learn and practise. There are many simple things you can do right away to start seeing results.

First, prepare by writing out your to do list the night before. If you know you’re going to need to focus for a long period of time the next day, take a few minutes to write down a list of all the tasks that you want to complete. Make sure this list is as specific as possible. For example, instead of simply writing down “study Spanish”, write down something like “memorize 20 Spanish words”.

Next, make sure you get enough sleep. Poor sleep can make it difficult to complete anything. Your mind doesn’t have the energy it needs for long periods of focus. If you really have to focus on a project even though you’re running on low sleep, try taking 10-minute naps in-between tasks so you can start to get back some of your energy.

Your environment is also important when it comes to helping you focus. More outgoing people may focus well in a coffee shop with other people around. While others may prefer the quiet of their home office. Have a clean workspace. Remove any projects or items that don’t have to do with what you’re immediately working on. Perhaps most importantly: turn off your phone and place it in another room. Like they always say: “Out of sight, out of mind.”

Keep working on focusing for extended periods of time, and you’ll eventually work your way up to be able to focus for quite a long time. Just remember that focusing for too long isn’t always the best idea. Take breaks, stay healthy, and you’ll find yourself focusing like a doctor in operation.

If you find this article on the Internet, you may say “I’ll read this later.” to yourself. Or you may read it before finishing all the other important tasks that day. Either way, you are procrastinating (拖延).

Procrastination stops us from doing our tasks so that we can have more fun at present. Luckily, if we can understand why we’re looking for fun instead of doing what we should do, we can stop procrastination and live a more fruitful life.

We run away from tasks because we find it hard to control our emotions (控制情绪). Without this ability, we wouldn’t do anything we don’t want to do. This idea of doing what we dislike makes us feel really terrible. That’s why our subconscious (潜意识) believes we’ll be able to get out of doing these tasks if we procrastinate.

If the idea of doing your task fills you with so much worry or fear that you can’t get started, try something you like. You can play your favorite song and dance around the room or give yourself 10 minutes to play with a pet. Once you’ve had a try, you might find the task is not as terrible as it seems.

Well, the next step is simple: Just get started.

You can do it by stopping finding excuses to procrastinate in the first place. For example you may be very tired, and you believe you will do better after you have rested. What’s more helpful is to believe that even though you’re too tired to finish your task, you might still be able to start and get a little bit done.

If you can control bad feelings, you can do the next thing that needs to be done, and at that point, you’ve already won part of the battle (战役). Take action!