Once upon a time, I was a little kid and I went to school and birthday parties and dance class. My parents took care of all of the details, and I didn't really know what stress was. Then I got to high school.

To be honest, I don't think stress is an entirely bad thing. To me, it means that I have multiple things I care about that I want to put an effort into. It means I have things I'm committed to. The stress comes from trying to fit all of those things I care about into a finite amount of time.

There is a point, though, when the stress gets to be too much. That's when I've over-committed myself. This week, I have hit that wall. I figured it was only right to use my struggle-bus moment to help you overcome yours.

I only get through over-commitment by prioritizing. Priorities are the secret to doing lots of things and making it look easy. I use the parameters of what matters most to me to decide if the thing needs to be taken care of immediately or if it can be pushed to the long-term.

Putting my week under the microscope, here's an example of how I decide my priorities:

I have nine-to-nine days that I'm blocked into while preparing for band camp. Those times are set. In the time I have left, I have to do leadership things (send out reminders to the color guard, buy all the prizes, tape equipment, etc) senior things (I can't tell, they're secret!) and I have to do my own packing and shopping. These are my "immediate" priorities. The lack of time to get all of these things done shoots them up to the top of the to-do list.

Next are the "important" priorities. I managed to plan ahead for my most important ones. I completed my online finance course and calculus summer packet last week and I sent emails to my service project mentor. These get priority because they all have to do with my future and school.

Then there are the "other" commitments, like my weekly Odyssey article. These are the ones that stress you out when you don't prioritize. It's not that you just ignore these "others"-- clearly I didn't do that, because I managed to write this article. It's about how much effort and time I wind up putting into them. I have to accept less than my best effort for these other commitments. It's a tough thing to say that you should put in less than your best into anything ever, but it's necessary. By prioritizing, you give your best to the most important and immediate things and give what you can to everything else.

Once upon a time, I was a little kid, but I'm not anymore and I know the stress that all high schoolers and college students go through now. I figured out this trick and I shared it with you, so I guess that means we're all one step closer to adult-ing now.