Get Organized: September Lunch ‘n Learn

What’s one thing just about everybody, especially college students, wishes they could be better at? It’s a skill useful in your work life as well as your personal life. If you’re good at it not only can it save you time, it can make your life easier.

The answer is, getting organized. Sometimes we need to figure out how to organize our things, and sometimes we need to figure out how to organize our time better. At September’s Lunch ‘n Learn we shared tips and discussed the struggles we face trying to organize things in our life. It seems like everybody wants to know how to be more organized.

I’ve tried to implement some organizational rules in a few rooms in my home to keep my things in order:

1. Objects must serve a purpose. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a functional thing. If it’s something very sentiment or beautiful, it has a purpose. If it’s something you don’t use and don’t like, don’t keep it.
2. Everything needs a designated place. It should go in a certain container, drawer, or cupboard. Label those areas if it helps.
3. The location of things needs to be logical. For example, I keep my hairbrush in the same spot in a drawer in my bathroom. I’ve used an overturned shoebox cover as a divider so my hairbrush is separated from everything else in the drawer. I don’t want to have to dig to find my brush, especially if I need to be somewhere at 8 a.m.

When it comes to time management, it gets a little more complicated. For school related things, I like to prioritize to stay organized. I use an assignment notebook to write down assignments. I’ll go through the list of assignments and number them in the order I need to do them. This is based on what assignment is due the soonest or whether it is a large project I need to break down and start early.

For day-to-day activities, I choose an outfit to wear the night before and make sure my bag is packed for the next day. Textbooks, clean shirts, hairbrushes, these are all things you don’t want to dig for at seven in the morning.

At the Lunch ‘n Learn we also discussed the importance of making time for fun. Yes, it is allowed, encouraged even, and it is important to make time for fun things so you don’t burn out. It’s okay to watch a movie and go out with friends. It’s also good to reward yourself for accomplishing things.

What kinds of things do you do to stay organized for school? How do you reward yourself when you accomplish something?