How to Stay Organized in Grad School

Starting graduate school can be both an exciting and overwhelming experience. As a new graduate student myself, I have learned one way to diminish some of the stress is organization. With so many new priorities, it can be difficult to juggle it all, but through this blog, my hope is you learn some tools and techniques to help you stay organized and have the best semester! 

Planners

Planners are such a great tool to stay organized. I am sure many of you are familiar with planners and have used them before. There really is a planner for everyone, especially now with many different planning apps, physical planners, and even a mix of both. I personally have a physical planner because when I write all of my tasks down on paper it feels like I am “brain dumping” all of the things that are taking up space in my mind. I also like a physical planner because I can make it fun by decorating it with stickers and using different colored pens. This helps make the tasks seem a little less daunting when you have a funny cat sticker next to them! I also like digital ways of organizing my priorities like my reminders app. This is very helpful especially when I need to quickly jot something down. Either way, if you prefer digital, physical, or a hybrid of both, planners are a great way to stay organized! 

Organizing Documents

As a graduate student, there can be a lot of assignments, papers, guided reading notes, and more that are taking up space on your computer. I create different class folders in my google drive to keep all of these documents organized. This helps minimize the document clutter in your drive and further organizes the documents into their respective class folders, so you can focus on one assignment (and class) at a time.

Managing Time

I have noticed in graduate school there are a lot of readings. It can be hard to stay organized and manage your time when you have a lot of readings to complete. A tool I have found to be very helpful when it comes to managing your time is the app Focus Friend. This app helps you stay motivated with a cartoon bean! As funny as this sounds, it actually works. You set a timer for however long you want to read, study, do homework, and while you are working the cartoon bean knits items like socks and scarves. When the timer is up and you have completed your session, you can use these socks and scarves to buy different things for your bean (e.g. decorating the bean’s room). This app can also be used to help you stay focused when doing other things besides assignments, like if you need to update your planner, clean your room, and more! This tool is a fun way to stay motivated, organized and manage your time effectively.

Evening Habits

Have you ever had a stressful morning where you are rushing out the door to get to an early class? Have you ever opened your laptop in class and noticed that it was at 5%? Have you reached into your backpack and realized you forgot your favorite pen? This can feel so overwhelming because now you are in class, you feel scrambled and stressed, but have to be ready to take in new information. I know that I can relate to this experience and if you can too, here are a couple of tips to help this not happen again. First, I have found it helpful to pack my backpack the night before. This might seem like a simple solution, but it can make a big
difference! Having my fully charged laptop, my favorite pen, my notebook, and my planner all in my backpack and ready to go for the morning takes a lot of stress off of my shoulders. It even means I can sleep in a little extra in the morning, which I am sure is something everyone appreciates. I have also found it helpful to lay out my clothes the night before. Decision fatigue is a real thing, and picking out clothes in the morning is one more thing that can add to that. Packing your backpack and picking out your clothes the night before can be very helpful!

Rest, Rest, Rest

You cannot be organized, have motivation, be productive, and be your best self if you do not make time for yourself. Please consider this another tip to stay organized and a reminder that rest and self care are important and necessary to stay organized and show up as your best self!