How To Be Organised In University
1.Planner/Wall Calendar
One thing that really helped me in university was a wall calendar where I could see my entire academic year on one poster. Now it's scary to see it all there and makes you feel like there isn't a lot of time left but that's why it helped me so much. It made me see that I don't have a lot of time to do assignments so it kept me organised. It was also a reminder everyday I had assignments due. The same is with the planner which I honestly struggle to use properly. Sometimes I hardly checked it but if I had a wall calendar up in my room I could check it. I do have one of those pocket sized planners for this year in the hopes that I'll use it more as it's easy to carry around. A planner or a wall calendar will definitely keep you organised while you're in university.
2. To Do Lists
I don't know how people cope without having to do lists. They give me structure everyday. Even those weekly planners are handy because it keeps me organised. They are a great way to figure out what you need to do each day. One tip I would highly recommend is gather a list of all your assignment deadlines and put them in date order. This helped me so much because I knew which assignments I had to prioritise and get done first. It also helped me to figure out which term each assignment was due in. So I knew all the deadlines in Winter were important and needed to get done first over the assignments that were due in the Spring and Summer. It was also a great feeling to cross off each assignment after handing it in and made it a lot easier to focus on what I had to do.
3. Do a little work everyday
I'm not saying everyday you should do big amounts of work but doing a little everyday can really help you out in the long run. Whether it's doing research, gathering references or making a plan for your assignment. Just working on your assignments a little bit everyday means you're one step closer to finishing your assignment. You'll thank yourself in the long run when you've gathered all your references and it comes time to actually write the assignment knowing you have a clear idea of what you're going to write about. One tip a lecturer gave to me about references is make a point, back it up with a reference then explain how it all fits together. Whether you like it or not you're gonna need references for assignments so start reading.
4. Make use of the library
Speaking of references, make use of the university library. They have all the books you need on every subject. They even have books on how to do research, study and write essays. In my second and third year I was taking out ten books at a time in order to research assignments. In my first year I hardly went near the library because I was a little intimidated but trust me, you'll need the library. It's free to use for students and it's also a great place to work. In my university library it had three or four floors and on the bottom floor that was where you can chat and work in groups then the higher the floor you got then the more quiet you had to be. It's great if you prefer working in complete silence or having a little background noise. Definitely take advantage of the library while you're in university and it will be a life saver.
5. Get into a routine
I can't stress this enough about getting into a routine because you will get a lot of free time while at university. You may only have one lecture on one day and then you'll have free time for the rest of the day to do what you want. This can lead to some problems because if you don't have structure to your day then you may procrastinate and ignore your assignments. Try to get yourself into a routine that fits with your timetabled lectures. Plan to make the most of your day doing work then use your evenings as free time. Of course we all have times where we work best so try to figure that out and work around it. It's good to have a bit of a schedule so then you can keep organised. This is where my to do list tip comes in real handy. Also I know we're all human and we all have days where we want to do nothing productive. That is completely fine. Do have one day of the week where you can just chill out and relax because you need to take care of yourself at the end of the day. Just try not to make it a habit where you have more free relaxing days rather than productive days. That's not good.
6. Do not leave it to the day/night before
I believe every student has done their assignment the day/night before. In my first year, I was in a 24hr study room with a bunch of other people who all had assignments due the next day some were even in my class. It was a very stressful day and I'm pretty sure I stayed there for six hours. The room had a vending machine and a coffee machine which helped with that. I had about six cappuccinos that day. While the motivation of the fact it was due the next day got me through doing the assignment, I'm pretty sure I barely just passed on that assignment. It's not worth doing it the day before it's due because you will most likely end up having a mental breakdown and literally all you're doing is winging it with references from random books and websites hoping it will make sense. So yeah don't leave your assignments to the day/night before it's due because you will regret it.
7. Ask for help
If you're really struggling and all these assignments are getting on top of you. Ask for help. Your lecturers will want to know if you're struggling. It doesn't make you weak to ask for help, it shows you really care about your assignments and actually want to get the degree which is essentially the point of going to university. The lecturers are there to help you but they're not mind readers, they won't know if you're struggling unless you tell them. I'm not talking just about assignments, your mental state and well being is also important. I very nearly dropped out of my first year of university. Hardly anybody knew about this because I didn't tell them. Not even my lecturers. I was having an issue with a group assignment and I felt like I couldn't do it. I was scared I was going to fail it even though this was way before the deadline and instead of asking for help, I went back home to my mum without telling anyone. A few people knew I had gone home unexpectedly because this was in the middle of the week but they never knew why. Luckily in a few days it was reading week so I only missed two lectures but still. I felt like dropping out of university because of this one assignment. This was only in the first term of my first year. This was the first assignment I had. Luckily if it wasn't for my mum and going for a meeting with my personal tutor then I might have dropped out. Finally, I confessed the issue that I didn't have a group for this group assignment and thought I was going to fail. My tutor spoke to the lecturer of that assignment and eventually I went back to university to have a meeting with him. I was terrified because I thought he was going to be mad at me and yell at me. I'm a massive overthinker so all sorts of scenarios that didn't look good for me came to my mind. I went to the meeting because I knew the issue wasn't going to be resolved if I didn't go and honestly that was the best decision I could have made. That lecturer was my favourite lecturer after this meeting. I went in and he asked what the problem was so I told him I didn't have a group and he said so why not do it by yourself. Suddenly it felt like all my Christmases came early. I thought the group work is compulsory but it's not, you can do group assignments by yourself which felt good and made me realise I was stressing plus going to drop out of university was for nothing. My point after that long story was to ask for help because if I hadn't asked for help, I might have been a university drop out. Your lecturers do care about you and it's good to share your problems with them because the result could be better than you expected.
Anyway, that's pretty much all my tips on how to be organised for university. I hope they were useful to any of you going to university. Of course these tips can be used in other parts of your life where you need to be organised not just in university. Let me know any other tips you might have that I haven't mentioned for staying organised and we can help each other out.
Thank you for reading my blog and I'll be back again tomorrow with another university related post for you.
See you then.
Megan x
*This is not a sponsored post*
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