From Chaos to Calm - How to Organize Student Life (Even When You Really Don't Want To)
Organization. It’s soooooo much fun - I KNOW!!! But, as annoying as it might feel in the beginning, it really is the gift that keeps on giving. As a student, being organized is one of the most useful skills to master. It’s no good trying to do anything if you don’t know when it needs to happen or you don’t know where you put it after you finished it.
The one good thing about organization is that it DOES get easier (once you find the right system). If you tend to continue to avoid doing it, blame the system, not yourself. A smooth organizational system makes everything so much easier; it’s actually hard to give up once it’s a habit!
Once you get to this stage, you know you’ve hit organizational gold.
A good organization system is hard to abandon because it’s actually easier to do than to not do.
Now, are you ready to organize your life?? Let’s get this party started!!!
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The first thing you think about when setting out to organize your student life is organizing your stuff…
…so let’s start there!
Make a home for everything
Get in the habit of always putting things away. If things DON’T get put away regularly, don’t automatically blame yourself. If you’re trying to hard to keep things in their place, but they’re still ending up in a chaotic no-man’s land within a week, it’s a sure sign that your organizational scheme isn’t working. If this is you, it’s time to re-imagine your set-up.
Target those things that never get put away. Is it because they live at the bottom of a pile that’s too annoying to put back? Is it because their place is in the wrong room? Is it because you use them all the time and it just doesn’t make sense to drag the same things out every day?
Maybe all you need is a weight/bookend so you can stand your binders beside each other instead of in a vertical pile. Maybe you need to find a home on your desk for that thing you use every day. Maybe there’s a stack of loose papers you always need access to, but they keep getting messy and disorganized because there’s nothing containing them.
No matter what your problem is, there’s always a solution…it just might take a little creativity after first admitting that there’s a problem that could be remedied.
Bins with lids are your friend
Sometimes there are things that will always look messy and disorganized…even if they aren’t. There’s nothing wrong with a chaotic collection of pencils/pens/erasers/tape/paperclips, etc. as long as you can always find what you’re looking for quickly.
Sometimes you’ll be lucky enough to find the right little tray with the perfect categories, but that’s not always necessary. Put everything in a bin with a lid, and the mess will be contained, organized (enough) and hidden. There’s nothing wrong with a little behind-the-scenes organized chaos as long as it’s functional.
Keep papers in their place
Though more and more things are going digital, it still hasn’t fully eradicated the use of paper in most schools. Keep all of this paperwork clearly categorized and organized. Create a binder (or a separated space within a binder) for each of your classes, and store everything chronologically as you learned it.
If you prefer to take notes in a notebook (instead of on looseleaf or digitally), look for a notebook that has perforated, hole-punched pages. Add those notes to the appropriate section of your binder as soon as you get the chance. This is the best way to avoid having bits and pieces of each course stored in many different places.
Do your best to never have loose sheets of paper that you need to bring anywhere. They will pretty much always get lost. If you can’t put them directly in your binder, find a way to attach them in some way….whether that means taping/stapling them to something else or re-creating your own version that fits with the rest of your notes.
Label everything
If you have an unmarked set of black notebooks for every subject, you run the risk of bringing the wrong one to class every time. Do yourself a favour and label everything!!
To make things as easy as possible for yourself, imagine you’re labelling things for someone else.
Label your notebooks and binders in a way that if you asked someone else to bring you a specific thing, they’d find it on the first try. Label tabs in your binders in a way that you could ask someone else to find something specific.
Don’t forget to also label things with your name if you’re going to school AT school..or if someone else in your household has similar things.
Create folders on your computer
While it may be tempting to just put things in a general “school” folder on your computer, that’s a great way to lose things. Never be reliant on having to search for the title of a document to locate it.
Create folders for each term, sub-folders for each class, and sub-sub-folders for each unit. It’s way easier to do this as you’re saving each new document instead of dealing with it when you have a ton of junk on your computer.
Bookmark sites you might come back to
Just like making files on your computer, bookmarking sites can become an essential organizational tool. Even if certain sites are usually a simple google search away, it’s almost always still faster to go to your bookmarks and find that site you need. If you’re always relying on a search engine, you run the risk of forgetting the right keywords to search for and not finding what you’re looking for.
If you’re given a separate email account for school, make a habit of checking it regularly. Also check your school’s social media accounts once a day just in case there are any announcements you should know about.
As a student, your stuff isn’t all you need to organize; you also need to organize things in your head.
Write everything you need to do down in ONE PLACE
Whether you’re a hard-copy agenda person or a google calendar person, make sure there is one single place where you write down all of your deadlines and due dates. Do not write test dates on the top of a random page in your notes!! You will NEVER remember to look there.
Write everything down in one place and make a habit of looking at it regularly. If you do this, you’ll never miss another deadline again!
Don’t multi-task
Mental organization is just as important as organizing the life in front of you. When you try to do too many things at once, it’s a breeding ground for general chaos…it also gives plenty of opportunities for your physical organization to self-destruct as well.
Do yourself a favour and focus on one thing at a time instead of opening up everything and diving into your homework with random short bursts of work.
Develop a routine
This goes hand in hand with not multi-tasking as far as organizing your mentality. If you don’t have any method to the madness, it will always feel like a struggle to sit down and work.
If you develop a routine, it won’t always feel like a struggle to sit down and work.
(I know you wanted me to say it’ll never feel like a struggle….but I’m not going to pretend like you’ll ALWAYS want to sit down and work…that’s just not human).
Developing a study routine will make some aspects of sitting down to work habitual. It will become normal to come home and check your schedule to see what you need to work on that night. It will become normal to make a list of the things that HAVE to get done, and then the things that should get done if you can. It will become normal to then sit down and start.
Once getting things done just becomes normal, there will be less resistance to start those hard tasks…because you’ll know that once you start, you’ll also eventually get the benefit of it being done!
Soooooo…..are you excited about organizing your life yet???
If you’re still not convinced organization is right for you, find a different system. If you’re working too hard, something’s not right, and it’s (probably) not you. Really focus on those things that seem to be the biggest struggle and find a way of systematizing those things. If you have a system that slowly gets slightly off each day, don’t just settle for it being good enough. Those little things DO add up over time, and they’ll create bona fide problems later on.
Organization IS something that takes extra time up front…but it only takes so long because there’s a little experimentation that needs to happen before you find the perfect system. Don’t worry if there are some failed attempts before you find success. Not every system is going to work for everyone in every situation, so just doing what your favourite influencer does might not be the right thing for you.
Organizing your student life is sooooooo worth it, though. Once you do, your entire life will become so much easier!
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Who is Nadya Corscadden?
Nadya holds an MA in Musical Theatre and is no stranger to the home learning scene. Having spent a good chunk of her younger years in distance education (and opting for some correspondence electives at university), she has accumulated many tricks to help maintain focus and inspiration. She has a passion for independent learning and wants to help anyone and everyone find their stride in this atmosphere whether it’s homeschooling or simply studying for that next big test!
She is also a triple threat singer, dancer and actress….and can’t wait until stages are alive again!