How to Organize Everything for the School Year

It’s Sunday night and you’re packing up your things for school on Monday, you see a stray piece piece of paper in your math folder and suddenly feel the dread of remembering a forgotten assignment. You think you finished all your homework, so you settle down for a relaxing afternoon, only to remember your assignment with only hours left to finish it. This just adds stress to your life and takes away from the quality of your work. 

Organization is vital in high school. In middle school, everyone would just remember their homework, because we barely had any. High school is a whole different beast, and when homework gets assigned in every class, it becomes really difficult to remember everything you have to do. When you forget homework, your grades either take a hit, or you get super stressed out trying to cram it all in. Being organized in high school can help boost your grades, bring down your stress level, and improve your high school experience.

There are a lot of different ways to organize in high school: planners, calendars, reminders, sticky notes, white boards, etc., however, it’s really the way you use these resources that matters. Here are some quick tips on how best to stay organized in high school!

Planners

Planners can be very helpful, but sometimes it takes a while to figure out the best way to use them. There never seems to be enough space to write everything down. There are a couple of different styles of planners, but there are some things you can do to improve your planner use with any planner. 

1. Prioritize your homework: always put the more recent due dates first, or distinguish them.
2. Color code: By color coding your homework, you can easily see what you need to do at a glance.
3. Plan ahead: Repeat the homework that isn’t due until later so you remember that you have it, and try not to forget about it until the day before it’s due.

Calendars

You can use Google Calendar or Apple Calendar, or any other calendar that is easily accessible from your phone or computer. You can use calendars as a way to replace a physical planner or you can use them together. The main advantage of these electronic calendars is that they can send active reminders to your device so you see them right away and are reminded of significant test dates or project due dates.

Miscellaneous

There are other resources you can use to help. To-do lists are a great way to stay on top of things! Writing down everything you have to do in a day helps you get a grasp of everything you have to do, and it is very satisfying to cross items off the list once you’re done. Other good options are Google Keep or Reminders on an iPhone.

Organization is a helpful skill in life, especially in high school. Getting ahead on homework and organization can really help, and doing it sooner rather than later is a good idea.