College Organization Tips: What Really Works

Getting organized for school and managing responsibilities can be difficult to do through memory alone, so today I'm sharing some of my favorite organization tips that I use to help keep me on track as a busy college student.

These tips are easily adaptable for anyone and everyone who wants to find a method of laying out their schedule in a way that works for them.

Using a Planning Tool

1. Paper Planners

Starting off with one of the most common ways to plan, a paper planner, a method that we have all likely used at one point or another. I have been a long time fan of these planners and would highly recommend them if you find that it generally works better for you to write things out.

Some benefits are that they are simple, easy to use, and can be found at relatively low prices.

There are so many options and styles of planners that range from minimalistic to more detailed. Which option you choose is based on personal preference and really depends on what you intend to use your new planner for.

For instance, if you want extra features to keep track of habits, goals, and grades there are planners that have designs specifically to help stay on top of your self-improvement goals as well as your academic goals. On the other hand, if you want only a basic outline of the week and month to customize to your own liking, there are also planner options with that type of structure.

2. Digital Planners

As I previously mentioned, I have been loyal to paper planners since I can remember, but recently I have been using a website called Notion which is a great option if you prefer an online planner.

Some of the benefits are that it is free to use, they offer a variety of templates that you can customize to your own liking, and it is easily accessible.

This site allows you to easily compartmentalize your life using different tabs on your main page.

Your planner can be as simple or complex as you would like and one of the other great things about it is that it can be a way to be creative in how you display each area of life that you choose to include.

For example, if you have one page for school, you can make that into a space that inspires you to achieve your academic goals. This could be pictures of your dream job, the name of the company you hope to work for, the link to you favorite study playlist, or a color scheme that you like.

Another idea is keeping a life goals page. With many tools to utilize like habit trackers & to- do lists you can explore and build a page that is beneficial in keeping track of the progress of your personal goals!

Setting a Day Aside to Prepare for a New Week

Once you have a place to plan the upcoming days, incorporating tasks like cleaning up, laundry or organizing can be useful for keeping all aspects of life in order.

Setting aside a day or time to do certain tasks can be something to consider trying out since it can create a weekly routine for getting them done.

This can be any day or time of the week that works for your schedule and lifestyle and can be really helpful for stay on top of the chores that can be easily pushed off.

A Master Assignment Spreadsheet

My last tip is to invest time at the beginning of the semester into creating a master spreadsheet through a tool like Excel or Google Sheets to organize your assignments in order of due dates for the entire semester.

This is a great way to have a go-to document that you can use to set up your weekly plans and also to be able to look ahead in order to help prevent missed assignments or forgotten upcoming tests and quizzes.

There are tutorials online that show step-by-step how to set your own spreadsheet up and the convenient aspect about it is that once you set up the structure once, it remains the same and only the content for your new classes changes.

Wrap-Up

This wraps up my College Organization Tips: What Really Works, I hope you can take away a new tip or two to try out yourself!

If you have any suggestions for staying organized during the year I would love to hear about them!

Connect with me on Instagram at @valgastinellblog and message me with any feedback or ideas for some new content you'd like to see in the future!

Coming Soon

Be on the lookout for a new blog post coming next Tuesday!