I would like to start off this website with something that I believe a lot of you guys are struggling with, especially as a high schooler, which is “how to stay organized?”. In high school, many people will have the tendency to do a lot of things, whether that is their decisions or that they are forced to do. These includes things such as schoolwork (AP courses for example), extracurricular activities (especially for those who want to get into top colleges), house chores (we are older now, so out parents tend to place in our hands more responsibilities), as well as leisure activities (hanging out with friends is something that I do a lot, and it’s likely that you are doing it too). Oh, and not to mention romantic relationships! Since we have too much in our hands and 24 hours a day to spend, you may find it hard to organize the work.
I don’t want to brag about myself or anything, but in class I am actually thought by people as one who organizes his time very well! Once, I remembered that I even got invited to my school's media club’s podcast in order to explain how I organize my time well - and today, I would share with you all some of the most effective ways that I have done in tackling this problem - which is still relevant now!
The first thing that I want you to MUST do is to always keep to yourself a planner. And not a digital spreadsheet or something - an actual notebook that you can always have by yourself in the backpack. Let me tell you something - without this physical planner, I wouldn’t have remembered anything - I don’t remember things very well. The layout of my planner will be something like this:
First part: the date.
Second part: on the left side, I will put checkboxes (so that I can make a tick when I have done the tasks I have written on the right); on the right side, I will mention every task that I need to get done, one on each line.
Every time I get mentioned that I have something for homework, I will always take it out from my backpack and write it in. And later when I come home, I will start to do these things. However, I get strategic when doing these works - by this, I mean I should be aware of what tasks I should do first, and what tasks can be left for later on. The rules are something like this:
Number 1 priority: something due tomorrow, like homework for a class
Number 2 priority: things that are due later but can be done now, like a project
Number 3 priority: work outside of school, like adding on this self-help website, or works needed to be done in a club
In the same podcast where I was asked of the way I organized my work, I also mention one more thing, that although it is not always applicable to any work, it will certain help to make sure you are not procrastinating - and this is to have a mindset of finishing something right away without delaying it until the next day or next week. Personally, I am not a person who can handle a lot of things very well, so I would like to make sure that for every work that I do, I will do it right away and I will finish it right away - that’s where the “not always applicable” parts come into play: there are tasks that are not meant to be done in a day. For example, in AP Physics class, where we were asked to finish a 25-page worksheet in three weeks, I have decided to finish it in one night - solely because I hate it when I have to continue doing it on another day, where there might be other homework as well. I know that this may sound a bit weird and absurd (don’t you have a life, Bach?), but just the feeling that I don’t have to think about something again is just so motivative and pleasing.
The last thing that I encourage you to do is to try to finish work by a certain time - for me, this time is dinner. There are two benefits from doing this - first, it makes you have the mindset of doing work right away instead of delaying it until later at night - I can get pretty lazy at night, you know? And for the second benefit, when I have tried to finish it before dinner, I will have such a huge chunk of time to do other things, such as to work on a club of mine. When I push the time of study up and the time for other things later on, personally, I feel less stressed out about school work (since even if I have a lot of work, remember, I still have a lot of time after dinner) - remember, other things are also very important to take into consideration, but the most important thing that you need to always keep into your mind is to keep that grade up! I know that you may want to do other things before the end of school and dinner (like sports), but try to start to do homework early!
I know these things that I mentioned above are not very easy to follow, but the most important thing that I need you to take from this post is the mindset of always finishing work, because when you realize that you actually need to do work, you are already halfway done with the work - for me, a work is consisted of two equal parts: one is the actual piece of work, and the other one is the tendency to actually do that work! And again, as I have mentioned before, always use a physical notebook as a planner - a digital spreadsheet can get very confusing and unhandy, and personally I just like the feeling of being able to use a pen and check the checkbox for every work that I am done!
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