There are tonnes of websites telling you how to be more organised. ‘Colour code your binders’, ‘use a whiteboard’, ‘take time just for YOU’. This stuff has never worked for me. Previous years of study had me really keen and feeling organised at the beginning of the year, and then after a couple of weeks that enthusiasm petered out. This year, though, I’m determined will be different.

You don’t have to have a super organised space in order to be organised. (Image from rawpixel.com, accessed 14/03/2019).

Contrary to popular belief, being organised isn’t just having a binder for each subject and a dedicated study space (although it’d be great if it was that simple). It’s more about being motivated to keep on top of your work and focussing on any underlying issues that mean you can’t stay motivated.

So, with that in mind, each week I’m focussing on a single thing that’s stopping me from being able to be organised, checking out why it was a problem, delving into the solution, and then figuring out whether that solution ended up working for me.

This first week has been me figuring out the best way to organise my study materials. For some people, that does mean a binder for each subject, but I’m always on the go, so that means my number one priority must be portability. At the moment, my solution is to set up OneNote for myself and use my 2-in-1 tablet / laptop-thing to save all the work I do in one place, which has actually been a great help so far. I don’t really have an excuse not to study, but if I need a break I also have the Sims (the original one with terrible graphics and gameplay) installed for a bit of downtime.