Speaking from Experience - Keeping Organised

Even the best people can become unorganised at times, but everyone has their own little ways to ensure they don't, as well as some people just not bothering and ending up in a right pickle. I want the pack that I am making to have a variety of different things - not too many though, that will help the student to keep organised throughout the first year. I don't want to bombard them with all the details about how stressful it can be and when because I think it will be better for them to find out for themselves.

Instead, I want the pack to kindly advise the student, with subtle hints of what it will be like without going into full blown detail. I want the overall look of it to be something that would instantly appeal to a Graphic Designer, so to keep them simple and the designs crisp throughout.

I started off by searching the internet for some keeping organised tips and ways to avoid it to start off my research. I have decided to do general research for this that could apply to anyone, and then when I come to putting it together I will focus it more for a GD student.


Research - online


How to keep organised
I found a great website with a whole list of ways to keep organised that were suggested to the person that made it by the audience (link). While some were crap and a couple repeated, there are a few useful ones.

• 3 most important tasks - writing down and making mental notes of my top 3 tasks to get done for the day. Everything else seems to fall into place if I do that.
• An easy and workable task list, or to do list - while I love all these handy... (long explanation).
• Keep ubiquitous capture devise - it might not be the same device for every location...but just being able to write stuff down when you think about it is key for me.
• Do it now.
• Put it away now - the single, simplest thing I do to stay personally organised is to put what ever tool, item, clothing, bag, hairbrush, etc away immediately after using it. I always know where anything and everything is so I don't waste time looking for it.
• A sheet of paper, a calendar and a whiteboard - I've found that the easiest way to organise myself, my days and so forth is a good paper calendar, a sheet of paper that I divide into four sections and a medium sized white board. For my paper... (long explanation).

Useful tools to keep organised

I found a list of 'tools' to help keep yourself organised, although these are more online/computer apps, but I am wanting to do more hands on stuff but I won't completely discard this idea. Click here for link.

Ways to organise and streamline your workspace

While this website gives tips for what someone could do themselves at home and isn't completely relevant to what I am wanting to do I still found the tips quite useful. (link) Here's a few good ones:

• Reboot your workspace each evening
• Label dividers
• A place for everything, and everything in its place
• Don't go overboard

FAQ for getting organised
This website has some interesting and useful answers to the basic questions people ask about getting organised. (link)

• Why is it important to be organised?
• How do I get organised if I don't have the time?
• Where do I begin?
• Once I'm organised, how do I maintain it?
• What can a professional organiser do for me?

Use procrastination to get more done

This website has some interesting tips to use procrastinating to your advantage. While keeping organised is important, some still procrastinate a lot and waste time. (link)


Student planners galore!
I saw this on a website I was looking through (link):

So I clicked to see what it was about. It is a pack of stuff for the student to keep organised, and has a list of what is in it (link), as well as a more detailed list on another page (link).

I think if someone was to give me this pack, and it had a whole list of stuff in like this list here then I would get so overwhelmed by it and think to myself "f*ck, what am I letting myself in for?" and just be completely put off going in the first place, and I wouldn't use it at all just because there is so much. So for my pack I will keep it simple and avoid as much as I can overwhelming the student.