Life always seems hectic. No matter what you do, it's not enough to organize your thoughts. Well, in my short eighteen years on this Earth, mainly fourteen of them goofing around, I have found these tips to be the most helpful throughout high school.
1. Keep a planner.
A planner will always be your best friend, I have used a planner ever since my 8th grade year. The things I keep in my planner include: to-do lists, homework, events, goals, and birthdays. I know some people go all out with their planners, such as my friend Grace! G Hig, as we like to call her, has been bullet journaling for almost 2 years now, each one gets better than the other. Sometimes in class, I would turn around and just ask her if I could look at it because it brought me so much pleasure. Below are pictures of G Hig's bullet journal from our senior year. Can we all take a second to ooh and ahh?
Now, I will never be as good as G Hig, nor will I ever attempt a bullet journal. G Hig is a special kind of a person, she said "I prefer to unitask instead of multitask. It keeps me focused on the task at hand so I give 100% to each thing instead of spreading my attention around to multiple things. Setting aside time to plan is also very important. It gets you in the mindset of knowing what you need to do and creating a plan and how to accomplish that." Like I said, G Hig is a special kind of person. She is the most reliable person in my high school and everyone knew that. Grace was our student body president the last year at our school. She tried her best planning everything from pep rallies, to homecoming, to prom our junior year! She is the most organized person I know and I will always aspire to be like her. Anyway, back to my planner, I keep it very simple, color code the classes I have and the homework I had in such fashion. I would also plan events and other important things in my planner as well. This being said, I would then transfer events and other things into my phone so I never, missed anything of importance, I suggest you do the same.
2. Pinteresting.
Okay, this seems really weird, but trust me on this. Pinterest is probably one of the best inventions ever created, right after the light bulb and of course the internet. Pinterest is my go to place for tips, diys, fashion advice, beauty, and pretty much everything else. You can follow me on there @sssaaarrrbbbeeeaaarrr , I'm on there almost every day/night. I get all of my organization tips off of there and honestly, they've helped me get through high school. My Pinterest includes the following boards: college, fashion, beauty, and bedroom designs. Anyway, Pinterest is my savior, and could be yours too. I have gotten inspiration for school projects, organization, feng shui, and much much more. Like I said, you will definitely want to check it out.
3. Writing everything down.
Writing things down is so so important. I write lists everyday, and I love to cross things off of it!. I keep a little notepad with me wherever I go because you never know when I thought/idea will strike you. I keep this little notepad by me especially when I do homework cause that's when my mind wanders the most. I call it my Think About Later List, or TALL, I write down everything, stupid or not, so I know to come back to it at a later date. Even during class, I would put a sticky note at the top of my desk and subconsciously begin to write down what I needed to think about later.
4. Making mind maps.
This is a mind map that I made my Junior year of high school!
Mind maps have helped me ever since my Sophomore year of high school in Biology. My teacher at the time used fun things called foldables to be able to help us learn the material. Recently I have been finding myself using mind maps more and more. I use them in my daily life at my office and at home when I have specific things to do. Mind maps can be hard to make up sometimes but other times they are easier to read than a To-Do List. While at work, I use them to spice up my note pad that always seems to be filled up with complaints. I alternate pink and black pen also to keep my mind in check!
5. Keeping my Email Inbox at ZERO.
Another big tip that I have is to keep your email inbox at zero. This keeps you up to date and relaxed as you don't have thousands of emails to be shuffling through every week. If you don't feel comfortable deleting your old emails, create folders to insert them into, that way if you need to reference it later, then you can find it easily in the folder you created.
6. ALWAYS be at LEAST 5 minutes early.
If you are on time, you are late. This applies to everything, work, volunteer work, appointments, etc.. If you are worried about not being able to will yourself to go early, set all of your clocks ahead 5 minutes. I did this in my car and was never late to my early morning vocational class. This being said, if you are planning on stopping by and getting yourself a coffee before work, plan time for that, leave ten minutes earlier. Always plan for what you expect to happen and what you don't expect to happen.
Thank you for reading!
