Let’s be honest: beginning a new school year is exciting, daunting, and stressful. You have to transition from your summer young-wild-and-free mindset, to your broke-stressed-and-hopefully-productive school year mindset. Which isn’t easy. Not to mention you are faced with the task of creating a killer resume which means: extracurricular involvement, work, and internships. Oh. And school. You have to focus on getting good grades too.
With all of the weight on our shoulders of making the money we are spending on our education worth it, stress seems to be inevitable, and it always feels like there is something you are forgetting, or there’s something else you should be doing. However, staying organized is a great way relieve the stress from your shoulders. Here are 5 tips to stay organized this year.
1. Create a weekly schedule- a routine you can stick to. There is nothing I love more than a routine (okay, maybe ice cream). It is a great way to make sure that you are able to cover all of your bases and maximize your time. Print off a Sunday-Saturday schedule from google and mark off all of your responsibilities, activities, and classes. This way, when you feel like you said yes to too many things at the involvement fair, you can assure yourself you have time (or re-think what you agreed to).
2. Make a list of goals for the year. These could be personal, social, academic, or anything else. This will help you focus your time in the areas that you want to see the most improvement. It would help to have these goals in a place you will see everyday. This will be a daily reminder of why you are doing what you are doing. I like to use a vision board for this.
3. Get a planner, and use all that it has to offer. I like to color code my planner in the beginning of the year. Green is health related, purple is clubs and organizations, red is class, etc. I make sure to write down all important dates as they come. And to make my planner into my own, I like to personalize it with photos.
4. Print out all of your syllabi and put important dates into your planner. This helps a ton to prevent you from forgetting about exams/huge assignments before the last minute.
5. Try not to procrastinate. This is the HARDEST tip, because with so many things to do, it is easy to put off the harder/less interesting tasks for last. But it is key in staying on top of your life. If you have an exam coming, start studying a week before. That way you don’t have to stress out the night of (plus you’ll retain more info and get a better grade #slay).