As the summer comes to an end, students around the country are packing their bags and heading off to college. Whether it be your freshman year or you’re a fifth-year senior, everyone knows that throughout the school year, it’s inevitable for things to become stressful. My past experiences have taught me that the way to minimize your stress as a college student is to be organized from day one. Organization is major key to staying on top of your classes, job, social life and every other aspect of student life.

Organization = success.

Even though a sense of organization may not come inherently to all, I’m happy to tell you that this is the 21^st century and there are a ton of products and tools that strive to help the users get a better handle on their organizational skills. With that being said, here are eight major key things that are essential for staying organized during the school year. Bless up.

1. Dry Erase Calendar

My Dry Erase Calendar is literally like my lifeline. It contains all the information about everything I need to do for an entire month ranging from tests and assignments, social activities, and extracurriculars. At the beginning of each week, I ensure to find time to update and plug in whatever is needed on the calendar. I also created a color-coded system using different colored markers. This makes it extremely for me to glance at the calendar and be able to quickly understand what I have to get done for each of the various facets of my college life.

2. Google Drive

If you haven’t used Google Drive before, I suggest you get out of the Stone Age and come join the rest of us in the 21^st century. Google Drive can and most likely will become your best friend in college. It’s extremely versatile, offering a plethora of features in addition to being extremely user friendly. In my opinion, one of the best uses of Google Drive is note taking. If you have a class with friends, you can share your notes with them via Google Drive and vice versa. This works out nicely because if you miss class, getting the information you missed becomes a lot easier.

3. Sticky Notes

Sticky notes are definitely the unsung hero when it comes to staying organized. They are great for keeping important information right in front of you because the phrase “out of sight, out of mind” is too real. I love using sticky notes to create a small to-do list that I stick right on my computer so it’s always in my view. My lists usually end up becoming an abridged version of everything listed on my Dry Erase Calendar. Doing this really makes a difference in terms of remembering important tasks from week to week.

4. Trash Can

Yes, you read that correctly. The garbage is an essential tool in getting organized and more importantly staying organized. Get rid of all that unnecessary clutter and only hold onto what you need. The less you have to be worried about, the better.

5. Planner

Not wedding planner, a weekly planner or agenda. It’s so much easier to have a condensed version of your schedule at your fingertips. A planner is also super helpful because it allows you to better keep track of class assignments as they’re given to you. Don’t go into classes assuming that you’ll remember everything about the assignments and chapters to read, have that planner handy to jot those details down. It’s also helpful to mark off tasks written in your planner as they’re completed.