Everyone knows how the semester goes: You start out really excited to be back in classes. A new semester means a new chance to be that ultra-organized student you've always envied. You get new binders, planners, pens, highlighters, etc., and start the semester off as strong as can be... For about a week.

During syllabus week, you see your semester laid out in front of you with a nice, neat little bow. The first day of classes, you get there early. You make sure to get the ideal seat in your 100-person geography lecture, and you even take notes on the syllabus. When you get home, you go back over the notes you took and highlight key points -- especially if your professor decided to dive right into course content. You transfer the dates from each syllabus to your planner and even color code each class. You're feeling good, and you're starting off in a great place.

The second week, you start to leave a little later for your classes. You're still early, but maybe you don't have time to pick up some much-needed caffeine. You're falling asleep and you don't take notes. Or maybe you do take notes -- they're just pretty much illegible. You haven't looked at your planner all day.

The third week, you decide to sleep in. You're not late, but you're cutting it close. You still haven't looked at your planner, so you're praying that nothing is due today. You haven't reviewed your notes for about a week, and you're not really sure what the professor is even talking about. You're scrolling through Instagram for the entire lecture. You're in a slump.

It doesn't have to be like this.

I have a novel idea.

Are you ready?

Treat each week like a brand new semester. Remember how excited you were to have your choice of seat in your lecture? Remember how caffeinated you were? How pretty your notes looked?

You can totally keep that up for the whole semester. You just have to change your perspective. If you treat each week like a brand new semester, you can keep those new-semester organizational butterflies.

Plenty of us have binge-watched the Netflix series "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt", and if you haven't, shame on you. If you have, you probably remember a pretty awesome quote from the first season.

"I learned a long time ago that a person can stand just about anything for ten seconds. Then you just start on a new ten seconds. All you've got to do is take it ten seconds at a time."

"Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" is a really funny show, but this quote is SO true. That's the idea behind my philosophy of treating each week like a new semester.

You can stand just about anything for a week. Then you just start a new week. All you've got to do is take it one week at a time.

Taking one week's worth of awesome notes doesn't sound too hard, does it? Being early for one week's worth of classes doesn't sound too hard either, does it? Nope. It's totally do-able.

If you can shift your perception, you can be the boss of this semester. I'm planning to do it and if I can, so can you.