Wow I have been busy! I want to apologise for promising regular posts and not fulfilling that promise. In the past month and a half I have celebrated a birthday, spent a week in Greece and spent a few days in London so as you can see I have been busy, busy, busy! Ironically, I thought I would do a post on the best ways to stay organised.
1. A Diary: This probably goes without saying, but a diary is the number one thing I would recommend to staying organised. I like day-to-day diaries better than week-to-week diaries simply because you have more space to write things. I write appointments, when I have lectures/seminars, whether I'm at work, blogposts, any exams/assignments I have in, birthdays etc. the list is literally endless. One day I would love to buy an organiser but at the moment I cannot justify the price of one. I also tend to buy academic diaries which generally run from August to August as I believe this fits better with me being at uni. You can pick up good priced but pretty diaries from many places but my favourites are Tesco, WHsmiths and Paperchase.
2. Lists: I am a massive list lover. I love stocking up on pretty notebooks and writing lists about absolutely everything from to do lists, and shopping lists. If I don't have a notebook on me I like to write lists on the iPhone app as I can tick it off once I have done it or remind myself when it gets closer to the time.
3. Time Management: You cannot be organised if you don't have good time management. My biggest tip for managing time actively is giving yourself more time than you will probably need. I like to wakeup 15 minutes before I need to just incase anything goes wrong and have to rush. This is similar when I leave the house, just in case I get stuck in traffic or even when I catch a train to make sure I am there on time. This also works for exams and assignments, so getting to an exam 15 minutes before you need to be (this way you can go over your notes) or finishing an assignment a few days before it needs to be in just case the submission crashes or I re-read it and realise I have forgotten something important.
4. Prioritising: This goes hand-in-hand with time management. Its important when staying organised to prioritise your list of things to do with what is the most important. For example, revising for an exam is more important than popping in to town to get those shoes you really want. I like to go down my to do list like this and then the fun things feel like a reward for the more mundane things you have to do.
So, here are my top 4 tips of how to stay organised. I also find that if I am organised I feel more motivated to get on with whatever I have to do such as university.
Do you have any tips to stay organised?
